Sweetner's

[Gary T]

Hi guys,

What are you all using for Sweetner’s for Jerky? I’m trying to find the best product and proper ratio per pound.

Thanks much, Gary T.

[Jonathon]

Gary T Since I only use premixed seasonings (and that’s honestly what I would recommend you do as well) I might not be the best person to answer this question. However regular sugar appears to be by far and away the top sweetener used in Jerky processing, Brown Sugar would the second and I don’t really see any evidence of artificial sweeteners as a main sweetening agent.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Gary T]

Jonathon Thanks J, yeah I’m with you on premixed seasonings as well, but I usually use that as the base and add my own seasoning to suit my taste. I just didn’t think it was as simple as Sugar LOL.

[Jonathon]

Gary T The one time we added more sugar to a premade jerky seasoning it came out excellent. We added a lot of it to try to bind up the water in sugar to make it more shelf stable, I’ll warn you though, it was 18% of the product weight in sugar. Check out the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DQAyF6FWfw

[Gary T]

Jonathon That’s a great video Jonathon, one question though? After adding all that sugar was it over the top sweet?

[Forkinpork]

Yeah I’m a premix guy myself, so many premixes available, you can’t go wrong. However, I have mixed and/or created my own blend, but the premix such a sure thing, that I stuck on it.

[Jonathon]

Gary T The first test batch we did was a little over the top sweet, however in the second one we tumbled it a little longer and made 100% sure all of the sugar was dissolved before adding the meat. Those two things seemed to help, the only reason for that that I could come up with was it prevented it from sitting on the outside of the meat and creating a film where it was the first thing you bit into because when we tumbled it long technically the meat took up MORE of the sugar but it deffinitely had slightly less of a sweet taste.

If anyone is looking to do this I can recommend the bold as a good base but if you are wanting to branch out and try a different seasoning I would recommend you stay with something with some heat to balance the sweetness.