How to Make Beef Jerky in Food Dehydrator

Smokey, salty, and just the correct amount of sugariness, beefiness jerky is a perfect snack for hiking, camping, and road-tripping. Larn how to make your own flavorful and tender beef hasty using either a dehydrator or an oven!

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

So if y'all're ready to get-go making your own beef jerky, yous've come to the right place. In this article, we share everything we know most making tender homemade beef jerky.

Why Nosotros Honey It:

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

Quick Tips for Making Beef Hasty

• Chewy = cutting with the grain. Tender = against the grain.
• Partially freeze your beef before slicing information technology. Firm beefiness is much easier to cutting.
• Tenderizing your beef with a mallet is definitely worth the attempt
• Employ a Ziploc bag or reusable alternative for the marinade, which allows you to coat each strip of beef by massaging the outside of the handbag.
• Preheat your dehydrator, and dehydrate at 160 F to ensure beef remains at food-safe temperature.
• Set a timer! Beefiness hasty can become over dehydrated if left in for too long, so you will want to pull information technology before 100% of the h2o has evaporated.

Eye of Round is i of our favorite cuts of beefiness for jerky

Best Cuts of Meat for Beef Hasty

Any lean cut of beefiness will work great for making hasty. In fact, when you're selecting a cut for your jerky, the leaner the ameliorate.

The reason is that fat doesn't dehydrate. H2o moisture will evaporate out of the beef during the dehydration process, merely the fat volition remain. And excessive amounts of fatty can atomic number 82 to your hasty going rancid.

So while a nicely marbled ribeye steak might be not bad for searing, all that intermuscular fat will be no good for making jerky.

By going with a lean cut of beef, you reduce the corporeality of fat you need to cut out. Plus, these are often the cheaper cuts of meat!

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

• Top Round
• Centre of Circular
• Tiptop Sirloin
• London Broil

However, if yous're looking for a really "primo" cut of beef to utilise for jerky, we'd advise using flank steak. It'south by far the priciest option, but information technology has a really not bad flavor and tin can be cutting into long sparse strips.

What Do With Fat?

Virtually all cuts of beefiness come with some corporeality of fatty, but not all of information technology needs to be removed.

You will desire to cut away any large caps of fatty gristle. This can be achieved by running your knife underneath it, lifting up a tab of fat, and shaving away at a shallow angle with your knife.

You may too discover some thin "veins" of intermuscular fat running through the meat. Whether y'all want to cut these out is entirely up to you lot.

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

How to Cut the Beef

Later on y'all've selected the cut of beefiness, the next footstep is to make up one's mind which management you want to slice it.

At that place are ii schools of thought on this:

• If y'all want your jerky to be chewy and then yous will desire 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, merely information technology's totally upwardly to y'all.

In terms of thickness, you want to slice the beef every bit thin equally you can. Perhaps not 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 volition be harder to dehydrate and will terminate upwardly being much tougher to chew.

If y'all are buying your meat from a butcher counter, the easiest style to piece your beef is to ask the butcher to slice it for you lot!

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

No butcher around? No worries! It'due south easy to slice the beef with a knife at home IF you follow this one trick!

To make the beef easier to slice, place information technology in the freezer for i-2 hours beforehand or until it becomes semi-frozen. (not frozen similar a rock, only house) Beef is so much easier to slice when it'southward semi-frozen.

Besides, it might seem obvious, simply use a precipitous knife! Tiresome knives cause all sorts of kitchen accidents, and, in this particular example, makes cutting the beef admittedly excruciating. A recently sharpened pocketknife volition make this process so much easier (and safer!) Nosotros own this Chef Choice Model 15XV and it works dandy.

The Importance of Tenderizing

I of the most common complaints near beef jerky (whether homemade or store-bought) is that it feels like chewing tree bark. We get it, nobody wants to champ abroad on a beefiness-flavored woodchip. And then what's to be done?

The first thing you can do is cull the right management to slice your beefiness, which we covered above. Against the grain = more tender.

The side by side thing is to brand certain you properly tenderize your meat. There are two ways to go virtually this: manually or with a pulverisation.

Pounding the beefiness with a meat tenderizing mallet will physically break down the musculus fibers, resulting in a more than tender texture. While a little labor-intensive this method is very effective (sometimes a little too effective). Make sure not to over tenderize! The beefiness slices need to retain some structure! You don't want to pound them into mush. This method as well has the added do good of helping to ensure the slices are all pounded to an even thickness.

Meat tenderizing powders are fabricated from enzymes. They are near normally derived either from papain, which comes from papayas, or from bromelain, which comes from pineapples. These can be sprinkled onto the beef and volition start working to pause down the fibers equally soon equally information technology gets placed into the dehydrator (activated past heat).

The other essential part of tenderizing is using a well-salted beefiness jerky marinade. Salt will naturally kickoff to break down the muscle fibers, yielding a more than tender jerky.

Beef Hasty Marinade

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

Thankfully you won't have to twist our arm to go our recipe (it'south in the recipe carte beneath!) Our recipe does a great job recreating that archetype "original" jerky flavor, only you can totally adjust the spices to brand this recipe your ain.

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

Which is Better: Oven or Dehydrator?

You tin can make succulent tasting beefiness hasty using either. However, you will go ameliorate and more than consistent results if you utilise a dehydrator.

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

We will requite instructions for both methods, only if yous desire to go serious about making jerky then you will desire to consider picking upwardly a dehydrator. They can be very affordable and have a ton of other groovy uses.

Equipment Spotlight: Dehydrators

If y'all're in the market for a dehydrator, we recommend buying one that has an adjustable temperature, which will allow yous to dial in the drying temp to give you the best results for individual ingredients. The dehydrator nosotros use and recommend most often is the COSORI Premium. You lot tin can notice our other favorite dehydrators hither.

Beefiness hasty before and after dehydrating

How to Dehydrate Beefiness Jerky

To dehydrate your jerky, preheat your dehydrator to 160F. If yous're using your oven, preheat to 160F or as low as you can set it.

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

The drying time will depend on how thick the beef was sliced, total load, humidity in your infinite, and your particular car–double bank check your dehydrator's transmission. We observe that jerky usually takes between 4-half-dozen hours. Every so often, use a paper towel to blot any fat, and shuffle or rotate the trays if needed to promote fifty-fifty drying.

Properly dried jerky should crack when aptitude, but non interruption. Be sure to test using a cooled piece.

Nosotros personally like to store our beef jerky in reusable mason jars which are airtight.

Best Ways to Shop Beefiness Jerky

How you store your beefiness jerky will often depend on when you intend on eating it. The longer you want to shop information technology, the more specific the storing procedure needs to become.

Up to a week: Beef hasty will be fine for up to a calendar week in a non-airtight reusable or plastic baggie. The less exposure to air the ameliorate, and it'south a good idea to continue out of direct calorie-free.

Up to a calendar month: Y'all will want to use an airtight container (Bricklayer jar, resealable container with gasket lid). It can exist stored at room temperature but should exist kept away from direct light.

3-half-dozen months: For anything over a month, beefiness jerky should exist vacuum-sealed in an closed container. FoodSaver makes a multifariousness of ways of vacuum-sealing food either in plastic pouches or reusable Mason jars. You volition want to store it in the fridge.

Up to a yr: To maximize the storage time of your beef jerky, yous will want to vacuum-seal it in an airtight container and store it in the freezer. You may also consider using a moisture-absorbing packet.

Other recipes you'll enjoy

↠ Teriyaki Beefiness Jerky
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• ii pounds beef, (lean cuts are best & will go on longer)
• ¼ cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons dark-brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon garlic pulverisation
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• one teaspoon meat tenderizer, *optional

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

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

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

• Identify the beef strips in a zip-top handbag. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over beef.

• Cover & marinate for 12-36 hours. Shake the pocketbook a few times every bit it'due south marinating to make certain the beef is evenly coated.

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

• Dry at 165F/74C for 4-6 hours, occasionally blotting off whatever fatty droplets that appear on the surface. Test using a cooled slice. Properly stale jerky, when bent, should crack simply not break.

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

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

Storage Notes:
Properly dried and packaged jerky will continue for a calendar week at room temp in a regular nada-superlative bag, up to a calendar month at room temp in an air-tight container, 3-6 months in an air-tight container in the fridge, and upward to a year if vacuum sealed and stored in the freezer.

Calories: 163 kcal | Carbohydrates: 4 g | Protein: 28 g | Fat: iv g | Potassium: 395 mg

*Nutrition is an estimate based on information provided by a tertiary-party nutrition estimator

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

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

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

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