Jerky me, one more time.

I thought I would send a few pics from my recent jerky makings, I have some excess big game meat that I want to clear out before I go hunting this fall and have worked these recipes out over a couple decades. Making jerky is amazingly simple if you have never tried it, it is hard to ruin meat and easy to work up recipes that you like.

When I butcher my elk, deer or antelope I take the meat off the bone in the muscle groups which I refer to as "meat loaves". I'm not really ready to go into the process here but when you take the meat which each piece being an individual muscle you don't get much or any sinew in that particular piece of meat which leads to less grizzle. It isn't always possible to get a reasonable portion per muscle group so sometimes there is a sinew line but in most cases you can get a sinew free piece of meat which is perfect for making jerky, slicing into steaks to grill or a roast. In either case except for the back straps I don't make "elk steaks", I make lots and lots of roast and if I want steaks I take a roast and carve off the thickness I want for my steaks. I hope that makes sense, I will try to remember to take some pictures when butchering my elk this fall.

Anyway using the "loaves" method I take my vacumme packed elk roasts from the freezer, I usually package them in 1.5 to 2 pound packages since that is the most useful size for my current family

Then I let them thaw for a couple hours. The trick for perfect jerky is to cut the slices while the meat is mostly frozen which makes it easy to get decently thin slices with a knife, I like 3/16" thick which is highly subjective.

Now for the hard part, haha

I like use "rib rub" spices to flavor the meat here my favorite:

Since I am always looking for the next best replacement I tried this as well:

Whatever you decide to use you really can't go wrong, you may not "like" your choice but it will be edible and better than the NITRATE fortified crap you buy at the local gas stop. I lay the slices on a plate and sprinkle the rub on them:

That plate shows a couple of layers of meat then sprinkle, then meat then sprinkle, etc

Now after a day the plate will look like this:

From this point all you have to do is dry it to have jerky, here is some pics of just putting it on a dehydrator and getting the moisture out

The discolored middle parts are a result of the salt in the cures "cooking" the meat chemically and preserving it. Not really a big deal if you plan on either freezing the jerky or consuming it in the next few weeks. If you want long term storage you would want the whole piece of meat cured brownish. The dark crystals on the top are pepper for a spicier taste, more on this later.

Trays all loaded up, ready to dry, you could use a fire, or a solar dryer in place of my very energy intensive $24 dehydrator.

and now the finish product after 6 hours in my dry climate it doesn't take long, if you life in more humid conditions maybe another 2-3 hours

More advanced and tasty recipes I use call for some smoking, which could be done over a fire using any type of hardwood like apple, hickory, mesquite, alder, cherry, etc

I will pull out my 30+ year old Little Chief Smoker, I like to point out that you don't need a lot of high tech shit to make decent smoked meat, this was $20 when I purchased it and is now maybe about $100

Load the racks

And add some chips, I am a big fan of mesquite, but hickory is always good. The other woods listed above also are good it is a matter of individual taste