Posted: 7/16/2006 3:24:41 PM EDT
| I've never made any but have a ton of Venison and only have an electric oven and a microwave, so is it possible to make jerky using these? How could I dry it? |
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Jerky should be dried without heat - just using dry air flow. Cut your meat thin, then season/marinate however you like, place on paper furnace filters and strap the filter to the top of a box fan set on its side. I like biltong (South African style jerky) best, and this is how I do it. To be honest, and give credit where credit is due, I learned it from Good Eats on food network. I think the show still has recipes/directions online. |
+ Alton Brown had a very convincing argument against dehydrators and all that, if I remember right... Some $0.99 filters, a fan, and viola...jerky to die for. It's been a looong time since I've seen that episode, but it made sense. He's like the freakin' McGuyver of food  Here's his recepie for the air filtered jerky. |
| American harvest by Nesco is a good one. I use it, and have never had any problems. Pick one up at walkmart with 4 trays for around 40 bucks. comes with a few packs of jerkey cure, and seasoning, and for a couple more bucks you can also get the jerkey extruder thingy for ground meat. |
| Yes you can use an oven but is easier to mess up (over dry to the point it like chewing a stick) than when using a dehydrator. Google recipes, the good recipes call for an equal amount of soy sauce and worcheshire sauce, some liquid smoke, garlic powder, chili pepper flakes, little dry mustard and a few other spices. A tip is to cut your meat into 1/4" to 3/8" slices while still partially frozen. Take the meat out of the freezer and let it thaw slightly in the fridge and then it's easier to maintain a nice even cut than when it completely thawed. Easy to do but remember that the jerky should bend and not break or you have over dried it. Takes anywhere from 6 to 12 hours depending on how many trays you are doing (some dehydrators hold 15-20 trays, and how thick you slice the meat. Please don't try making jerky strips out of ground deer, cause you might as well go buy a slim jim and save your time (you'd be surprised at the number of people that can't do it the right way). |
+1 And it also comes with an order form to get extra trays. ETA I also use mine to make deer pepperoni. |
what type of filters is he talking about?? there is tons out there that i would not put meat on. i dont understand |
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I dried a lot of jerky in the oven before I bought my dehydrator. I'd cut the meat into thin strips (partially freezing the meat first helps alot with slicing thin strips). Then I would soak in a marinade with worchester and montreal steak seasoning (use whatever you think would taste good) and then dry the strips on those little wire trays cakes cool on. I set the oven at its lowest temp and propped the door open with a wooden spoon to let the moisture out. It takes a long time to get it all dry, but check it fairly often. If you like it and want to get more advanced or easier, there are alot of products out there to help. |