Tips for Making Marinated Beef Jerkey in a Dehydrator

Smokey, salty, and just the right amount of sweetness, beefiness jerky is a perfect snack for hiking, camping, and route-tripping. Learn how to brand your ain flavorful and tender beef jerky using either a dehydrator or an oven!

Making your own beef hasty at dwelling is not but incredibly simple, but it is also much much cheaper than buying shop-bought hasty. Plus, you'll be able to command all the ingredients that go into making it; no weird stabilizers or unpronounceable additives.

Then if yous're ready to first making your own beef hasty, you've come to the right identify. In this commodity, we share everything we know almost making tender bootleg beefiness jerky.

Why We Honey Information technology:

• Versatile hiking, camping, travel snack
• WAAY cheaper than buying store-bought jerky
• Slap-up way to brand use of cheaper cuts of meat
• Lots of opportunities to develop your own customize flavors

Quick Tips for Making Beefiness Jerky

• Chewy = cut with the grain. Tender = against the grain.
• Partially freeze your beef earlier slicing it. Business firm beefiness is much easier to cutting.
• Tenderizing your beef with a mallet is definitely worth the effort
• Utilize a Ziploc bag or reusable culling for the marinade, which allows you to coat each strip of beefiness by massaging the outside of the pocketbook.
• Preheat your dehydrator, and dehydrate at 160 F to ensure beef remains at food-safe temperature.
• Set a timer! Beef jerky can become over dehydrated if left in for too long, and then you will want to pull it earlier 100% of the water has evaporated.

Middle of Round is one of our favorite cuts of beef for jerky

Best Cuts of Meat for Beef Jerky

Any lean cut of beef will work great for making hasty. In fact, when you're selecting a cut for your jerky, the bacteria the better.

The reason is that fat doesn't dehydrate. H2o moisture will evaporate out of the beef during the aridity process, but the fat volition remain. And excessive amounts of fat can pb to your hasty going rancid.

And so while a nicely marbled ribeye steak might be great for searing, all that intermuscular fat will be no skillful for making jerky.

By going with a lean cut of beefiness, you reduce the amount of fat you need to cutting out. Plus, these are oftentimes the cheaper cuts of meat!

These are our go-to cuts for making beef jerky:

• Top Round
• Eye of Round
• Summit Sirloin
• London Broil

Withal, if you're looking for a actually "primo" cut of beef to use for hasty, nosotros'd advise using flank steak. Information technology's by far the priciest option, but it has a really great flavour and tin can be cutting into long thin strips.

What Do With Fat?

Nearly all cuts of beef come up with some amount of fat, only non all of information technology needs to exist removed.

Yous volition want to cutting away any large caps of fat gristle. This can be achieved by running your pocketknife underneath it, lifting up a tab of fatty, and shaving abroad at a shallow angle with your knife.

You may as well observe some sparse "veins" of intermuscular fat running through the meat. Whether you desire to cut these out is entirely upwards to you.

If you are really trying to maximize storage life, you can go alee and carefully cut these out. But if you're planning on eating in your hasty relatively soon, it is fine to leave them. We just e'er cut out the really big line of fat and leave the residue.

How to Cutting the Beef

After yous've selected the cut of beef, the next pace is to make up one's mind which direction you want to slice it.

At that place are 2 schools of thought on this:

• If you want your jerky to exist chewy so you will want to cut with the grain.
• If you want your jerky to tender, you volition want to cut against the grain.

We tend to favor slicing against the grain, but it'south totally up to you lot.

In terms of thickness, you desire to piece the beef as thin as y'all tin. Maybe non paper-thin (which is kind of impossible with beef), but somewhere in the ⅛ to ¼ of an inch zone. If the jerky is too thick it will be harder to dehydrate and will end up being much tougher to chew.

If y'all are buying your meat from a butcher counter, the easiest way to slice your beef is to inquire the butcher to slice information technology for you!

This is usually a complimentary service, plus they have these amazing industrial meat slicing machines, so each piece will come out perfectly compatible.

No butcher around? No worries! It'due south easy to slice the beefiness with a knife at dwelling house IF you follow this i trick!

To make the beefiness easier to piece, place it in the freezer for i-2 hours beforehand or until it becomes semi-frozen. (not frozen like a rock, just business firm) Beef is and then much easier to slice when information technology's semi-frozen.

Likewise, it might seem obvious, but use a abrupt knife! Tedious knives crusade all sorts of kitchen accidents, and, in this particular instance, makes cutting the beefiness absolutely excruciating. A recently sharpened knife volition make this process so much easier (and safer!) Nosotros own this Chef Choice Model 15XV and it works groovy.

The Importance of Tenderizing

One of the most common complaints near beefiness jerky (whether homemade or store-bought) is that it feels like chewing tree bawl. We get information technology, nobody wants to champ away on a beef-flavored woodchip. So what'southward to be done?

The first thing you can do is choose the correct management to slice your beefiness, which we covered to a higher place. Against the grain = more tender.

The adjacent matter is to make sure you properly tenderize your meat. There are two ways to get virtually this: manually or with a powder.

Pounding the beef with a meat tenderizing mallet will physically break downward the muscle fibers, resulting in a more than tender texture. While a little labor-intensive this method is very effective (sometimes a picayune likewise effective). Brand certain not to over tenderize! The beefiness slices need to retain some structure! Y'all don't desire to pound them into mush. This method likewise has the added do good of helping to ensure the slices are all pounded to an even thickness.

Meat tenderizing powders are made from enzymes. They are nearly commonly derived either from papain, which comes from papayas, or from bromelain, which comes from pineapples. These tin exist sprinkled onto the beef and volition offset working to intermission down the fibers every bit soon as it gets placed into the dehydrator (activated by heat).

The other essential part of tenderizing is using a well-salted beef jerky marinade. Salt volition naturally showtime to break down the muscle fibers, yielding a more tender jerky.

Beefiness Jerky Marinade

Merely like with BBQ sauces, the marinade is the secret Ten factor in every beef jerky recipe. The exact ingredients and proportions are oft highly coveted trade secrets.

Thankfully you won't have to twist our arm to get our recipe (it's in the recipe card below!) Our recipe does a dandy task recreating that archetype "original" hasty flavor, but you can totally adapt the spices to make this recipe your ain.

Just recall not to add any fats/oils to your jerky marinade (lots of grilling marinades phone call for fats) if you plan on storing it for any length of time.

Which is Ameliorate: Oven or Dehydrator?

You can brand delicious tasting beef jerky using either. Nevertheless, you will get better and more consequent results if you use a dehydrator.

Dehydrators offering much amend temperature control (especially at the lower temperatures needed for dehydrating) and they provide vastly better airflow.

We will give instructions for both methods, but if you lot want to get serious about making jerky and so you will desire to consider picking up a dehydrator. They tin be very affordable and have a ton of other great uses.

Equipment Spotlight: Dehydrators

If you lot're in the market place for a dehydrator, nosotros recommend buying one that has an adaptable temperature, which will allow you to dial in the drying temp to give you the best results for individual ingredients. The dehydrator nosotros use and recommend well-nigh frequently is the COSORI Premium. You tin can find our other favorite dehydrators hither.

Beefiness jerky earlier and after dehydrating

How to Dehydrate Beef Jerky

To dehydrate your jerky, preheat your dehydrator to 160F. If you're using your oven, preheat to 160F or as low as you lot can prepare information technology.

Load the trays, making sure no pieces of meat are overlapping, and and then identify them into the dehydrator or oven.

The drying fourth dimension will depend on how thick the beef was sliced, total load, humidity in your space, and your detail machine–double cheque your dehydrator's transmission. We find that hasty usually takes between 4-6 hours. Every then frequently, utilise a paper towel to blot whatever fat, and shuffle or rotate the trays if needed to promote even drying.

Properly dried jerky should fissure when bent, only not pause. Be sure to test using a cooled piece.

We personally like to store our beefiness jerky in reusable mason jars which are airtight.

Best Ways to Shop Beefiness Jerky

How you lot store your beefiness hasty will often depend on when you lot intend on eating information technology. The longer you want to store it, the more specific the storing process needs to go.

Up to a week: Beefiness jerky will be fine for upwards to a week in a non-airtight reusable or plastic baggie. The less exposure to air the better, and it's a practiced idea to keep out of direct light.

Up to a month: You will want to use an airtight container (Bricklayer jar, resealable container with gasket lid). It can be stored at room temperature but should exist kept abroad from straight light.

3-6 months: For annihilation over a calendar month, beef jerky should be vacuum-sealed in an closed container. FoodSaver makes a diverseness of means of vacuum-sealing food either in plastic pouches or reusable Bricklayer jars. You will want to shop information technology in the refrigerator.

Up to a year: To maximize the storage time of your beef jerky, you lot will want to vacuum-seal information technology in an closed container and store it in the freezer. Y'all may also consider using a moisture-arresting packet.

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• 2 pounds beef, (lean cuts are best & will keep longer)
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• two teaspoons salt
• one teaspoon garlic pulverisation
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• ane teaspoon smoked paprika
• one teaspoon blackness pepper
• 1 teaspoon meat tenderizer, *optional

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going night

• Thinly piece the meat* and cutting off all visible fatty.

• Pound slices with a meat tenderizer mallet until pieces are uniform thickness (aprox nickel width).

• Place the beef strips in a cipher-height bag. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over beef.

• Cover & marinate for 12-36 hours. Milk shake the handbag a few times as it'south marinating to make certain the beef is evenly coated.

• Spread the meat in a unmarried layer, shaking off whatsoever excess marinade, on the dehydrator trays.

• Dry at 165F/74C for 4-6 hours, occasionally blotting off whatsoever fatty droplets that appear on the surface. Test using a cooled piece. Properly dried jerky, when bent, should cleft but not break.

• Bundle jerky in and air-tight container or vacuum seal (*see storage notes below). Store in a absurd, night & dry place.

*Partially freezing the meat makes it easier to slice. Cutting with the grain for chewier jerky & cut against the grain for tender but more brittle pieces.

Storage Notes:
Properly dried and packaged jerky will go on for a week at room temp in a regular nada-top pocketbook, upwardly to a month at room temp in an air-tight container, iii-vi months in an air-tight container in the fridge, and up to a year if vacuum sealed and stored in the freezer.

Calories: 163 kcal | Carbohydrates: four 1000 | Protein: 28 yard | Fatty: four g | Potassium: 395 mg

*Nutrition is an estimate based on information provided by a third-party nutrition calculator

This recipe was originally contributed past Kira and Brendon of Adventurehaks.com and was updated 11/21 with additional information | Recipe adjusted from Allrecipes.com

Fresh Off The Grid is a culinary resource for the outdoor community. We offer a drove of recipes, how-to guides, and military camp cooking gear to help yous enjoy great food in the great outdoors!

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Source: https://www.freshoffthegrid.com/simple-beef-jerky-recipe/

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