How to Make Perfect Jerky


 
J

John Wallace

TVWBB Member
For meat, I strongly prefer top sirloin. With beef prices down 20% over last year, top sirloin can be found for around $2.50 lb. on ad.

For those who are new to jerky, I recently published this article, How to Make Perfect Jerky

It's a detailed tutorial, but with a smoker or an over you can turn it out great the first time.
 
Good article, I think I may start some today to smoke this weekend, would it hurt it to sit longer than two days in the brine? I may not get to smoke it until Sunday.
 
Joe, with a thin cut of 1/4" inch or so I think the meat could get mushy after two days. If you have a FoodSaver you can freeze it after marinating. I've done that to cut prep times and it's worked fine. Without a FoodSaver you still have a few days in the freezer. Just be sure the meat's not been previously frozen, and if you're freezing I'd two teaspoons of Tenderquick to the brine.
 
I'm into it:

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Been making Jerky for 25 years.
 
Mike what kind of dehydrator do you have?? I cant decide between something like a big chief smoker or a food dehydrator. I can't get my wsm to stay low enough for that amount of time to dry the jerky.
 
I'm going to try it on the WSM before I go & buy a dehydrator, but that looks like a real nice one.
 
If it isn't too cold outside, an electric hotplate and a pan of wood chips in the bottom of a WSM or ECB will work for smoking/drying jerky.

I find that a couple hours of smoke are enough for my tastes.
I then crank up the hotplate to finish drying.

Keep the temp low for cheese.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">bob, when you say hotplate do you mean one like a coffee burner (smooth & flat) or a coil like what's on an electric range? I assume the latter... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Correct, the coil type.

I never cut my jerky meat into large pieces, more the size of a skinny, but thick. slice of bacon.
I thread them onto bamboo skewers, several to a skewer, and then dangle the pieces through the grate slots.
Much more meat can be smoked/dried this way, rather than flat on a grate.
Just make sure the pieces don't touch each other.
 
OT: do you see any problem w/ just draping the meat over the regular grates & hanging it that way?
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Clint:
OT: do you see any problem w/ just draping the meat over the regular grates & hanging it that way? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This should work.
Might want to lightly oil the grate first.
 
well I'm trying a variation of this soon. Smiths (local grocer) had bone-in NY Strip roasts @ $2.99/lb. I had them trim an 11# roast & cut it 3/8" thick. It's going in the ronco dehydrator since I'm not confident in maintaining the low temp in my wsm.... NY should be good & lean, right? It looks good to me. It's marinating right now in a recipe mostly suggested by the link above.
 
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