What Is Jerky?

Simply put Jerky is a meat product that has been processed, seasoned, cured and then cooked or dried.

Meat Block

10 lb of Eye of the Round
1 Bag of Sweet Chipotle Jerky Seasoning
1 Bag of Sure Cure (Included with purchase)
20 oz of water (Just enough to cover the meat)

Equipment

Walton’s 10" Slicer
Pro-Smoker PK-100

Process

The first thing we are going to do is remove all the fat that we can with a knife. Get as little meat as possible when doing this but don’t stress if some meat comes off with the fat. Since we want to have as little fast as possible in this meat, deer and other wild game are great choices for making jerky.

Then we are going to want to cut our jerky into strips between 1/4 and 3/8" thick. We are going to do this with the Walton’s 12" Slicer but it can also be done with a Precise Slice Adjustable Knife, or a regular slicing knife if you have a very steady hand. Uniformity is important here as we want all of the slices to be the same thickness so they can cook at the same rate.

Meat Mixing

Then mix the cure with the jerky seasoning until it is evenly distributed. Now either coat both sides of each slice of meat by sprinkling it on or drag slices through until they are coated.

Holding Overnight

Place all jerky in a food safe poly bag and add enough water so that all the jerky is completely covered by water and hold for 12 hours to allow the cure to work. If you do not want to hold this overnight then you need to use a Cure Acclerator to speed up the curing process. If you use one of these you can go directly to the smoking or cooking process.

Note

The next step is to smoke or cook the jerky, remember simply using a dehydrator (unless it will get to over 160°) is not recommended. Lay all strips down on smoke screens or jerky screens and set the temperature to 130° and let it cook for an hour with the dampers open to allow for some drying, if you are using an oven you can use something to prop you oven open slightly.

If your jerky is too thin to inject a probe thermometer you can fold over a piece of jerky and place a probe thermometer in between the fold to get a fairly accurate reading.

Thermal Processing & Smoking

1 Hour at 130° with dampers wide open
2 Hours at 145° with dampers closed 2/3rds of the way
Cook at 175° until internal temperature reaches 160°

Cooling

Finally, we will hold the jerky at room temperature for 1-2 hours at room temperature before moving them to the refrigerator or the freezer before vac packing.

Wrap up

Whole Muscle Jerky is a very simple thing to make, it might take some practice to perfect but the major points to focus on are to cut the muscle into even strips, use just enough water to make sure all of the meat is covered when holding it overnight and have your dampers wide open for the first hour of thermal processing to assist in drying the product.

Additional Tips

• To increase the shelf life of your product make sure everything that will come into contact with your meat has been sanitized, we spray everything down with Hard Surface Sanitizer

Other Notes

You can use snack stick or summer sausage seasoning to make whole muscle jerky if you want to try different flavors.

Watch WaltonsTV: Whole Muscle Jerky Basics

Shop waltonsinc.com for Jerky Seasoning

Shop waltonsinc.com for Meat Slicers

Shop waltonsinc.com for Dehydrators

Shop waltonsinc.com for Smoke Houses

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