/ck/ - Food & Cooking

[Anonymous No.11895485]

Beef jerky is my all time favourite snack but I hate how pricey it is. I'm thinking of investing in a home dehydrator and making my own.

Does anyone have experience making their own jerky? Is it as easy as taking a cut of beef and throwing it in the dryer, or is there more to it? What are some nice seasonings to use?

[Anonymous No.11895536]

>>11895485
>is there more to it?
yes. that's all I know.

inform us jerky man! share with us your wisdom

[Anonymous No.11895539]

>>11895485
you sound like a jerk heh

[Anonymous No.11895542]

>>11895485
You can make it into the oven too if you oven can go low enough.

[Anonymous No.11895548]

>>11895542
This. Very easy to make it in the oven if you can get it down to about 170ish degrees. Wrap the bottom rack with foil to catch the drippings and put a toothpick through the jerky and hang it from the top rack.

[Anonymous No.11895563]

Worcestershire and s@y sauce with some all purpose seasoning and a teaspoon of honey is all you need to marinate. Chili powder is optional for the spicy variation.

[Anonymous No.11895652]

It's pretty simple, just requires patience. I use a jury-rigged method to dehydrate it: Sliced flank steak slotted into grooves of some 20x20 air filters bungee cord'd to a box fan set on high for about 12 hours. After the initial 20-something bucks to build that and whatever is needed for the marinade, I get 2 lbs of jerky for $20.

[Anonymous No.11895688]

>>11895542
>>11895548
Wouldn't there be a lot more wasted energy in the process?

[Anonymous No.11895708]

>>11895563
>Worcestershire
There is no taste like Worcestershire sauce and there's no way to make it on one's own.
is this the greatest thing around that can never realistically be made from scratch?

[Anonymous No.11895748]

>>11895563
this plus garlic

[Anonymous No.11895783]

>>11895688
Not really. Ovens are pretty efficient so long as you keep it closed. It'll take upwards of 4 hours to slowly dry the jerky.
But consider a dehydrator is at least a hundred dollars it'll take awhile before you should have bought one instead. OP might hate making jerky and it'll save him money to do it in the oven the one time he decided to try it.

[Anonymous No.11895816]

>>11895485
thinly sliced strip steak
seasoned with store bought "moroccan" seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic, sugar, onion, paprika, rosemary, tumeric, coriander, cumin, ginger)
into the food dehydrator for 3.5 hours at 60-70C

or you can build an air drying box and make biltong; large topside steaks dried for 3-4 days. not sure about spices as my friend makes it for me (he uses a south african pre-mix). pic related.

[Anonymous No.11895835]

>>11895485
had a trip to taiwan last year
they had these pork paper thing
tasty

[Anonymous No.11896484]

>>11895816
>or you can build an air drying box and make biltong
Came in here to suggest this.

[Anonymous No.11896509]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZiRrf2Zip4

This video is very helpful and shows how to make beef jerky with marinade and an oven.

[Anonymous No.11896617]

>>11895708
>can never realistically be made from scratch
Ever heard of garum? Try beef.

[Anonymous No.11896651]

i bought a huge dehydrator and make tons of jerky
it is super easy
you'll experiment with the marinade but it needs salt, sugar and acid
i fuck around with honey or maple syrup, miso or soy sauce, vingar and alcohol
than season with chopped carrot, chilis, garlic, whatever
it's all good the world is your oyster

[Anonymous No.11896801]

>>11895485
Its pricey because the beef is pricey and you only get about 1/4 lb jerky per lb of beef. You won't save as much as you think making your own. Your win, such as it is, comes from controlling the quality and flavor of the final product.

[Anonymous No.11896823]

>>11895485
i make jerky all the time, but it's not cheap by any means, spend upward of 80-120 dollars on eye of round to make maybe a few ziplock bags full of jerky that will last you about a month.

[Anonymous No.11896923]

>>11896801
you save a shit ton of money are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.11896943]

>>11895485
will it be that cheaper making it yourself? you have to count that most of the weight in meat is just water (about 70% for beef i think), so from from 100g of beef you'll get about 30g of jerky

[Anonymous No.11896963]

>>11896943
>will it be that cheaper making it yourself?
It's nearly always cheaper to make food yourself than to buy them.

Yes, there is a lot of water weight which is lost when making jerky, but in practice you don't dehydrate it completely. Generally speaking you only lose about half the weight of your meat when you make jerky. If you made it unusually dry then you might lose 2/3 the weight, but that's pretty extreme.

[Anonymous No.11896973]

>>11896963
You lose roughly 3/4 of the weight when you dehydrate it, assuming you are using lean cuts of meat. Add in the cost of the marinade and running the oven or dehydrator and you really dont save that much money. You save some, but you have to really like jerky for the dehydrator to pay off anytime soon.

[Anonymous No.11896977]

>>11896973
>You lose roughly 3/4 of the weight when you dehydrate it
My cookbooks and google both say you are wrong.

>>Add in the cost of the marinade and running the oven or dehydrator and you really dont save that much money.
Both are pennies, unless you're making some kind of crazy expensive marinade.

>>but you have to really like jerky for the dehydrator to pay off anytime soon.
You don't use yours for other things, like fruit?

[Anonymous No.11896979]

>>11896923
I've been making my own jerky for over 40 years, and have actually accounted for my costs on enough batches to know that the cost savings are surprisingly low. It is worth it for me for other reasons, but cost really isnt a major factor.

[Anonymous No.11896990]

>>11895485
I used to use soy and brown sugar marinades but have migrated to more savory marinades lately. My favorite is a brining solution containing red wine and white vinegar, with coriander as the spice.

[Anonymous No.11896998]

>>11896977
Your cookbooks and Google are either wrong or are using cuts with too much fat, or arent dehydrating it enough. Both errors result in jerky that will spoil quickly unless refrigerated or cured with curi g salt.

[Anonymous No.11897019]

>>11896979
yeah, the pleasure of making it as you want sounds good, but if OP just wants to spare money he would do better just jerking off punks under a bridge for $20 a man and using the money to buy jerky

[Anonymous No.11897023]

>>11896998
>The Professional Chef, Modernist Cuisine, and pic related are all wrong

Somehow I doubt that, anon.

[Anonymous No.11897028]

>>11896509
why the experiment cups? they look harder to fill but look cool

[Anonymous No.11897041]

>>11896963
A 12 oz bag of jerky is 17 dollars at the store I go to. I can make far more for that same price if I make it myself.

[Anonymous No.11897062]

>>11896979
your doing something wrong or your boomer math is wrong
last time i made jerky i used ~ 8kilos of beef that cost ~$60 and yielded ~ 3 kilos of jerky
so for simplicity's sake we'll say $75 which is roughly $25/kg or $2.5 per 100 grams
quick google search lowest i can find is a jumbo bag of jack links for $4.77 per 100 grams but higher end stuff is going for $6-8 /100g
scaling back up a kilogram of jack links is $47.70 compared to $25 at home
this isn't a negligible savings

[Anonymous No.11897063]

>>11897023
Yes, they are all wrong, or are using meat too high in fat for stability, or arent drying it enough for stability. If your final weight isnt well below 30% of your starting weight then something went wrong and you should keep it in the refrigerator.

[Anonymous No.11897067]

>>11897062
I can buy it for roughly $28/lb locally.

[Anonymous No.11897070]

>>11897063
>>the books are wrong even though I haven't read them!

Sure bro. sure. They all make it clear that the meat must be lean. And you don't need to dry it anywhere close to the amount you are for "stability", which Modernist Cuisine explains clearly. Educate yourself.

[Anonymous No.11897083]

>>11897067
$28/lb is $62/kg

[Anonymous No.11897121]

>>11897083
4 lbs of beef consistently makes me 1 lb 1 oz of jerky, plus or minus an ounce. 4lbs of good quality thoroughly-trimmed beef costs me right at $20. My costs factoring in everything run about $24/lb, depending on what I use in the marinade and how humid it is. I do use a good marinade. The cost savings are minimal.

[Anonymous No.11897134]

>>11897062
And how much are you spending on marinade and electricity?

[Anonymous No.11897145]

>>11897121
>>11897134
scale up your operation and trim the meat yourself
i allowed $15 for marinade and electricity in my estimate which i feel is more than generous

[Anonymous No.11897161]

>>11895548
Ya, i smoked mine on a charcoal grill at 200° for an hour and baked it for 3. It was really good and lasted a long time

[Anonymous No.11897209]

>>11897145
If the left side is after trimming then you still have way too much fat in that meat.

[Anonymous No.11897215]

>>11897145
I dont eat entire meals of jerky.

[Anonymous No.11897218]

>>11897209
i slice it and trim it again

[Anonymous No.11897474]

>>11897062
>jack links
Fucking disgusting. Have you no sense of shame?

[Anonymous No.11898164]

>>11895652
That's the Alton Brown method from Good Eats. How did it turn out? I was never able to find air filters so I never got to do it.

[Anonymous No.11898165]

>>11897474
did you read the post?

[Anonymous No.11898271]

>>11898165
I read enough.