How to Make Beef Jerky

Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Marck

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Beef jerky is a popular snack for many people all over the world. Chewy dried meat may seem to be unappealing at first, but many folks find the strong flavors of real homemade beef jerky delicious and appetizing. Instead of eating store-bought beef jerky, you can make your own with some simple ingredients, tools, and steps.

What is Beef Jerky?

Dehydration has long been used as a way to preserve all sorts of foods. Fruits, vegetables, and meat do not keep well for long days and long travels. Before refrigeration, many foods were air-dried or sun-dried to make them keep longer. Not only do dried foods keep longer than fresh foods, but the process also imparts a whole new dimension of flavor into the food.

Meat is dried not only to preserve it for the long haul, but also to add interesting depths and dimensions of flavor and taste. American-style beef jerky is similar in flavor to many other dried meat products, like pemmican (Native American), biltong (South African), and bakkwa (Chinese). Many supermarkets sell pre-made, ready-to-eat beef jerky products, although some prefer to make their own.

Ingredients and Equipment

To prepare beef jerky, you need the following ingredients and tools:

Beef. The best cuts of beef for jerky are lean cuts of meat with very little far. Sirloin and eye round are popular cuts used to make jerky.
Cure. To make a cure, mix two parts of cider vinegar and one and a half parts of table salt together. Don’t worry about the grainy bits of salt left on the bowl; the purpose of the cure is to draw out the moisture from the meat and add flavor.
Seasonings. You can add just about any seasoning, dry spice or herb to a beef jerky recipe. Common seasonings mixed in with beef jerky include soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cumin, pepper, onion and garlic powder, paprika, and sage. A few teaspoons of liquid smoke also adds a home-style smoked flavor to your beef jerky.
Dehydrator. Some people may prefer preparing beef jerky in an oven heated to the lowest temperature setting, but good beef jerky is almost always prepared with a dehydrator. You can buy a dehydrator from kitchen supply stores.

Steps

Cut the beef into strips. Remember to trim all of the fat off the meat, because the fat will not dry out. Fat deposits in jerky will eventually turn rancid and spoil the finished product. You can slice the jerky as thin or as thick as you want. Just remember that thicker slices of jerky will take longer to dehydrate than thinner slices. Don’t slice the meat too thin, or you wouldn’t have enough meat to chew.
Marinate the meat slices in the cure. It takes at least 12-24 hours for the meat to be cured by the curing solution. Keep the curing meat refrigerated to ensure that the meat cures properly.
Dry the meat once it’s cured, and season it for flavor. You may want to add a lot more seasoning than you would a roast or a barbecue to further strengthen the taste of the jerky.
Spray non-stick vegetable spray on the dehydrator trays. Arrange the meat with enough space and room in between the strips. Turn the machine on.
It usually takes 8-12 hours to make jerky. You know when the jerky is done when it’s pliable, but hard to the touch. You may need to slice one or two pieces together to check if there are still raw spots deep inside the meat.

Beef jerky will keep for at least a week when sealed inside an airtight resealable container. Yet if you make jerky taste so good, a pound of it will probably be gone in a day, depending on your appetite.