What is your method?

What type of meat cuts do you use for making beef jerky?

Thanks

I use London Broil. Cut it into strips about 1/8" thick. In a quart baggie, I add 1/2 cup soy sauce, 1 tsp. Worchestershire sauce, 1tsp. liquid smoke, 1 tsp. black pepper, 1 tsp. garlic powder and 1 tbsp. brown sugar. Mix it up good and add the meat. Squish it around real good and put it in the fridge for a day.

The next day, line the bottom of the oven with foil, drape the strips of meat across the middle grate. Turn the oven on warm and leave the oven door cracked open. Check it after about six hours. I like mine just a little chewy, not real dry. Put it in a container in the fridge. It usually doesn't last but a day or two. (meaning it gets ate)

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Smith & Wesson beat four aces

Alton Brown had an entire show devoted to preparing various kinds of jerky on "Good Eats".

If you ever get it down to where you can make good home made jerky you'll never eat store bought again. I've probably ruined two whole cows getting my cure just right, but I finally have a great 'secret' dry rub receipe.

As for meat, in beef I prefer eye of round sliced at about 1/8 inch. Venison is probably the best meat to use, turkey breast being a close second. I've actually make jerky using rabbit, squirrel, and quail. I've experimented with various species of fish, but so far it's all ended up in the trash.

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- Change it back -

Lean cuts only, trim the fat. With dried meat, fat will go rancid before the meat will, so avoid cuts with lots of marbling through them. Flank steak is usually a good choice. The better you trim the better the jerky.
If you put the steak in a freezer until it is semi frozen, it will be much easier to slice.
You can use about anything. I'll go for watered down soy sauce, with a tbsp. of onion powder in it. I usually grind my own from dried minced onion. A few drops or several of tabasco, 1/2 tsp. or more pepper, lemon juice, with a (roughly) 50/50 soy sauce/water, just enough to cover the meat. Sometimes I add a tsp. of wochestershire, sometimes not. A bayleaf is another option. Marinade for as long as you want, up to a day or so, then use your method to dry it. You can use an oven, or buy a dehydrator, or you can use a foil lined cardboard box with small dowels to hang the meat on and a lightbulb as your heat source. I've made batches of great jerky in a cardboard box many times.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

Venison

I make two kinds, ground venison with 10% pork and standard off the shelf mixes. Will also take venison strips sliced to a standard thickness and marinade over night. I have an adustable temp dehydrator so I do them on that. If you don't have one with a temp setting high enough, you'll need to start them off in the oven to ensure bacteria are killed off.

Get a meat thermometer to ensure internal temp is high enough to have killed off the bacteria. When you know how long it takes the internal temp to reach the safe point, you won't have to probe your batches, just time them at a consistant temp

With the ecoli outbreaks, it's even advisable to do this with store bought meat. 160 degrees F is what is needed to kill E-coli

Edit to add;
If you try poultry the temp needs to go to 165 degrees F to kill all the bacteria.
Side note, ALL animals have Ecoli in their digestive systems, including humans. It's only some strains that are the nasty ones. While I used to enjoy a nice rare steak, it's no longer worth the risk. Cook all meat to the required temp and then continue the dehydrating process.

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NRA Life Member

Well, if I want to make Beef jerky it usually works best to start with Beef. Just about any inexpensive roast such as rump, pot roast, etc, the leaner the better for the reasons given above.

I like Jerky basically plain, no Soy Sauce, Worcestershire Sauce, Teriyaki, etc. Simply slice the meat a little less than 1/4" thick, rub in a few drops of liquid smoke, then Morton's Tender Cure, and finally brown sugar and some coarse black pepper. Marinating overnight is OK but not really necessary as the salt in the Tender Cure and the brown sugar will penetrate the meat very well before drying really starts. Place in the oven at the lowest temperature setting available, mine is 170 degrees. Use a wire rack (cookie cooling racks are good) on a cookie sheet and you won't make a mess. Leave in the oven for 6-12 hours depending on how dry you like it. I like it to be dry enough so refrigeration isn't needed, about 12 hours.

I have made Jerky in a conventional smoker and it took longer and didn't taste one bit better than using the liquid smoke.

Although I see you are an EMT so would probably know better than I do, I've always heard beef doesn't need to be cooked beyond the point you get the outside hot enough to kill the Ecoli because Ecoli is in the intestines not the meat.Ground beef is obvioustly different because the contaminated stuff can get ground in.Am I wrong?

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Chad

Okay, so I'm different. I do both muscle meat and ground meat for jerky. Bought one of those jerky makers, looks like a caulking gun, that you load the ground beef in and then squeeze out in strips.

I chill the muscle meat, slice it as thin as I can with a knife, never found anything else that works to slice it with, place it in a mix of soy and worcester sauce (along with secret spices and herbs) overnight, then in the dehydrator for around 5 to 6 hours.

The ground meat I mix either a dry commercially purchased spice mix in or I use a salt/onion/garlic mix and mix it in thoroughly. With the ground meat, you don't have to let it marinate, you can put it right in the dehydrator and in 5 hours you have good tasting beef jerky. What I like about the ground meat is the consistency and thickness is the same throughout, with the muscle meat some of the thin slices get crispy and the thicker ones are still kinda chewy, you have to kinda separate them out while cooking.

I like to buy sirloin or top round on sale, grind it myself after trimming as much fat as I can get off, using a fairly coarse grind. People don't believe that the resulting jerky started out as ground meat but they keep coming back to taste it some more !!!

Dan R

The temperature level is correct, but he meant Salmonella and not E. Coli.
Oven dials are not known for their accuracy (mine is off by almost 50 degrees), and for any cooking an oven thermometer is a handy accessory to have.
I think the newer digital ovens are probably far more accurate but I am not sure of this.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

I use London broil or a really lean top sirloin, any kind with no fat. Freeze it, slice it and marinate over night in a commercial package mix plus some salt. Then use a food dehydrator over night.

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Still Running Against the Wind

I’ve used various meat cuts in the past, but now I use extra lean hamburger. I’ve got one of those “caulking gun” type jerky makers another poster mentioned. I mix in some salt, teriyaki marinade, and some Liquid Smoke.

Actually you are right, ground meat has a higher chance of being contaminated because it is ground up. Ecoli normaly resides in the intestines but poor sanitation practices can lead to the muscle mass getting contaminated, both commercialy and in home preperation.

I didn't specifically name Salmonella, but Geoff is right it does penetrate through the surface and into the meat.

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NRA Life Member

I also go with London Broil for the meat now days but in the past I have done tons of venison, I slightly freeze to aid in cutting also. 1/8 strips soaked in a ziplock bag of seasoning overnite and a dehydrator for 6-8 hours does the trick. I never worry about storage or preparing it for long term storage as it disappears from the counter--- some how.