Wanted: your jerky recipes

Carol Reed

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Have smoker (also a dehydrator) and a double package of London broil. And a PID coming. WooHoo! One day sale on meat yesterday. Will trim and slice later today to get it ready.

So I need a recipe - or recipes to choose from.

Your turn.
 
I use this one mainly for venison, but it works as well with nicely trimmed beef {remove as much fat as possible}.
For about 2 lbs of starting meat which will result in 1/2 to 1 lb after drying, I use {approximately> no set rules for exact measuring}...

1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp black pepper
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
2/3 cup Worcestershire sauce

Mix all ingredients and pour over meat placed in a zip-lock bag...marinate overnight....drain, pat dry, allow to air dry 15mins to a half hour, then dry using your preferred method. I like the smoker, with a temp between 160° & 200° and anywhere from 6 to 12 hours depending on surrounding weather conditions and desired hardness. I have also used this recipe using the oven, set at 200° for about 4 hours, a dash of liquid smoke in the marinade makes up for the no chip burning in the house {Mrs rule lol}

BTW, a good tip for consistent sized strips, is to freeze the meat for an hour or so before slicing.
 
On my last attempt, I tried the one below, I just had the temp way to high and turned it to bark, but the flavor was good. I'd shoot for 150 degrees on temp, some folks say 140, some 160 - 170. The goal is to dry the meat, not cook it, but you also want to render any fat in it (a little higher temp helps with this) and soak it up with a paper towel.

http://www.foodgeeks.com/recipes/teriyaki-jerky-4819
 
We get a bottle of Soyaki...blend of soy, teriyaki and sesame, found in any market...toss the meat in that for a day the put it on the dehydrator until done...usually about 48-72 hrs. Carne asada works really well too.
 
How thick do you make the slices? I used to have a slicer - no more. I do know about the partially frozen trick for slicing, though. When I had the slicer, I made them around 3/16" That's a bit harder with just a knife, albeit a sharp one. Thanks, Brent.
 
OK for starter something I have learned fairly recently is don't use table salt. use either sea salt or kosher salt. Table salt contains Iodine which will make the meat bitter. Now my basic recipe would use 1 tsp salt with 1 tps brown sugar per pound of meat and you can add soy other seasoning to taste. If you are going to cold smoke it you will need to add 1 gram of cureing salt (Sodium nitrite I believe) per lb. of meat. You can use Morton's tender quick in place of the salt since it contains the proper ratio of cure. Walmart sells the tender quick cure.


Oh and something I forgot is you should figure curing in the fridg for 24 hrs per 1/4 inch thickness of the meat for proper curing.
 
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To be very clear, you can make jerky without a cure, but for safety, that would only be for jerky that would be consumed quickly, or stored in the fridge or freezer.

If you intend to store it long term, un-refrigerated, you will need to use a 'cure' on it. I've not used the Tenderquick, but I have used primarily commercial preperations that already contain the proper proportion of seasoning and 'cure'. I have purchased some of the '#1' and '#2' cures, but have not used them yet.

http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-...g-and-pickling-salts/178/morton-tender-quick/

Whatever you do, make sure to follow the recipes and recommended amounts accurately.

Here's what the USDA has to say about it. They say that home made jerky should be consumed in 1-2 months.

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal...sheets/meat-preparation/jerky-and-food-safety
 
I have never!!! cured jerky. 1/8" seems to make the meat happy...try a few different thicknesses...see what works well on the teeth but is still in the safe zone for "time-to-dry" Thin dries faster, but has no real chew...1/8-3/16 seems to be the magic number. Vacuum pack or Ziploc in the freezer.
 
My recipe is close enough to Kens as to make no never mind on the difference. Sometimes we add a little hot, sometimes we do more soy and less Worcestershire, sometimes we add some brown sugar to make it more "teriyaki" like, and there are always other possible spices like black pepper, etc.. but its all pretty much variations on the same base recipe.

Usually I dry it a bit cooler, closer to 160 for a while and then drop the temp down to maybe 120-130 and hold it for quite a while until its hard enough to stab someone with because I'm generally making "road chew" which is not like commercial jerky at all but more like the base for pemmican. Most people don't like my jerky as much as most of the commercial stuff (you have to be committed to eating it before you get very far :D).

OK for starter something I have learned fairly recently is don't use table salt. use either sea salt or kosher salt.

Or pickling salt. Definitely true for salt cured meats in general, although the amount of added salt in most jerky recipes is low enough that it doesn't matter as much as when all the salt is "from scratch". Most jerky recipes the bulk of the salt comes from the Soy Sauce or Worcestershire.

One thing to note about salt is that the density of the of the salt between the types can be vastly different so I strongly prefer recipes that give the measurements by weight otherwise you can be up to around 25% off if you have a different type of salt (or indeed any dry ingredient). For a rough overview see this chart from Mortons: http://www.mortonsalt.com/for-your-home/culinary-salts/salt-conversion-chart (although we have some fine pickling salt we got in a 50lb sack I know is denser than regular table salt so that chart doesn't cover them all).
 
Well if I were to avoid nitrates ans nitrites I would have to give up bacon, sausage and many many other foods and that ain't gonna happen as well as jerky.

And radishes and celery and carrots and beets... (assuming you're not a meatitarian most people get something like 90+% of their nitrates from vegetables). Ruhlman has a fun rant that highlights some of the absurdity here: http://ruhlman.com/2011/05/the-no-nitrites-added-hoax/

Primarily the advantage of adding nitrates to things like bacon is that it reduces the chances of some pathogens like (primarily) botulism. This is especially important whenever you're doing any curing in low-medium temperatures (FDA says below 140F which is where spore production essentially ceases, but spore production slows down substantially even at 120F).

The risks are primarily twofold:
  • Reduced oxygen carrying capacity (simplifying vastly here but that's the end effect). This is what almost all of the FDA rules are centered around and are aimed primarily at preventing blue babies. For adults or older children the risk profile drops dramatically. Generally the area of concern here is heavily contaminated water. You could theoretically mess up and add enough nitrates to food to be a problem, but careful measuring and using the appropriate nitrate mix reduces the risk to not really concerning for me at least.
  • Possible conversion of nitrates to nitrites to nitrosamines which have some evidence of causing cancer (its pretty clear that nitrosamines are a mutagen, but how much form and how is debated). The studies here have been really inconclusive; at (very) high levels there was a correlation with increased tumor growth but at low/medium doses there was a negative correlation (the rats actually had less tumors). The evidence to date indicates that in most normal usage the formation of nitrosamines is pretty rare in the stomach (exception being if you have another pathogen like salmonella present that does the conversion for you so eat less bacon if you have food poisoning). A few things seem fairly clear; vitamin C reduces nitrosamines production (eat sourkraut with your cured sausage) and cooking nitrate cured foods at high temperatures (say over 300F) accelerates nitrosamine production so cook your bacon at medium not high (although if you burn it enough to form enough bad compounds it will also taste not so good so.. yeah..).

There also appear to be some other beneficial side effects from nitrate consumption primarily in that it forms into nitric oxide (via a complex interaction between your saliva and the nitrates and other compounds in the food) which has a bunch of interesting effects on the body that are generally universally beneficial (mostly related to improved blood flow).


Short version: I'm not worried about them, but feel free to make up your own mind :D
 
Great info Ryan. I pulled out Ruhlmans Charcuterie book yesterday because of this thread, and I think it's high time I used it to make up a little cured smoked sausage!
 
Ok...here we go. Increased or decreased O2 uptake is graded at the mitochondrial level, this is why RBC's have no mitochondria. In a less complex model, alveolar uptake is determined by availability of source, O2 content and alveolar development, number of alveoli available and gas exchange possibility. Nitrates are bad...O2 is good. The argument point is conceded, those of you that like them and find them yummy, please indulge. But if you delve a bit deeper, the studies show they are bad, they suck and better methods of preserving exist. I'll concede that nitrates are healthy and good for you...please indulge and enjoy!!!

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sodium-nitrate/AN02119
 
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