How To Make Homemade Jerky - Recipe

[exotic1]

Jonathon I was wondering the same thing. Thanks for the info.

[gusmanp]

I grounded 25# of deer meat I mixed in the Colorado seasoning in the meat and grounded it again but I didn’t add water first time using product from Walton’s do you need to add water?

[Jonathon]

gusmanp Sorry for the delay in responding. The only real reason I would add water to a restructured product would be to make mixing and extruding easier, other than that it isn’t necessary. When I make restructured jerky I like to use smoked meat stabilizer so I can go right to the smoker, and when using that you don’t really want to add water or it can gas out so quickly that it can cause issues.

Hope that helps!

[jason b]

when making restructured jerky is it needed to refrigerate overnight or 12 hours like it is needed for whole meat jerky? thank you

[Jonathon]

jason b Yes, if you do not use a cure accelerator like the Smoked Meat Stabilizer then you should hold it for 12 hours to allow the cure time to work in the meat.

[jason b]

Jonathon thank you sir much appreciated I will get some smoked meat accelerator on my next order!

[JerkyIsMySalad]

I’m going to start slicing and marinading some venison Jerky tonight. I am going to split 10 lbs of meat between sweet chipotle and colorado seasonings. Thinking about maybe adding some brown sugar to keep them from getting too dry. Any tips, ideas, or advice?

[PapaSop]

@kanevak
Never used brown sugar but have used a bit of white. Go for it. Can’t hardly goof up jerky.
I slice the meat 1/4 thick and against the grain. Makes for easier to chew and not so stringy product. Good luck. Shoot out some pics when done.

[Jonathon]

@kanevak Brown sugar is a good choice to avoid it drying out too much. Check out these two posts were we focussed on that https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/598/how-to-make-tender-jerky-at-home and https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1138/tender-jerky-using-home-equipment

You can add up tp 18% the products weight in brown sugar and 20% its weight in water, though at those levels it does get a little sticky! Good luck!

[JerkyIsMySalad]

Jerky is in the smoker but I’m loving my new slicer!

[Tex_77]

@kanevak what kind of slicer are you using? How thick did you slice it?

[JerkyIsMySalad]

Tex_77 chefs choice 615A. 1/4" thick. For some reason my phone isn’t letting me upload pictures

[Jonathon]

@kanevak The images are too big, when you go to post there should be an option on your phone to change the size, usually medium will do it.

[JerkyIsMySalad]

[JerkyIsMySalad]

[Jonathon]

@kanevak How much, if any, brown sugar did you add and how was the end result? Looks good for sure!

[JerkyIsMySalad]

I wanted to avoid too much stickiness so I did 15% of the weight in brown sugar and 20% of the weight in water. It was not one bit sticky. The difficult part is judging when to take it out of the dehydrator because when it is warm, it is much more pliable than after it cools down. Sweet Chipotle is a very delicious flavor! I can’t wait to try it with beef!

[JerkyIsMySalad]

The smoked jerky… I don’t know where I went wrong but it almost looked like it cooked before it dried. It didn’t all have the nice red color and I never went above 170 degrees. The only thing I can think of is that when I seasoned it, I forgot to mix the cure with the seasoning so I ended up mixing it with the water/brown sugar. maybe it didn’t cure properly? Not sure…

[Jonathon]

@kanevak Venison jerky has a tendency to go super dark sometimes, I think it has to do with the amount of hemoglobin in the muscle…I think, I might be wrong on that though. lamurscrappy do you tend to notice that?

[lamurscrappy]

I think it depends more on process. For one i would not add 20% water unless you have a vacuum tumbler. Yea you can add water if you want but just put a dab in to help mix the seasoning. Too much water can drown out some of the cure while marinating. Did you smoke it or just dehydrate it? If you want it a nicer red color marinate it for 48+hours. Even a little erthorbate will burn it redder as well. If you smoked it then put heavier smoke on it a bit longer. Hickory gives great red color. If you just dehydrate it then its harder to get it real red. My jerky cook cycle is 200 degrees the entire cook cycle, i also use humidity for an undisclosed time so 170 isnt that bad.