Posted: 5/4/2007 10:31:45 AM EDT
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I was just given a dehydrator and have a couple questions: What cuts of meat work best? Dry or liquid seasoning? How long does it take? Anything else I should know? Thanks in advance! |
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I use london broil, the less fatty the better. dehydrated fat is nasty Cut into .25" strips while frozen, it SO much easier to cut marinate overnight in beer teriaki sauce soy sauce A1 worchestershire sauce Adjust for taste Lay out strips on your dehydrator and sprinkle with fresh cracked pepper Place on a medium high setting on your dehydrator till it's "jerky like" 
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London Broil is not a cut of meat its a way of cooking meat. Most times london broils are cut from a top round AKA inside round. It's one of your best choices due to it being very lean. The meat should be cut with the grain, so if you are going into a grocery store find the guy who knows what he is doing. Good chance he's the one that owns guns and hunts. The fat will go rancid faster then anything. Most people make their jerky and gobble it up. Then think about doing it again. Most get bored with it really quick. I always did mine in the oven on the lowest setting with the door open a crack. Most household ovens will hold more then a dehydrater. |
+1 Let the meat marinate in the fridge overnight. I will tell you that the BEST beef jerky I have ever had is made by my mother and she "cooks" hers in the oven at a low temperature (125-150 or something I don't know the exact temp) and leaves the oven cracked open with a butter knife or something. I have never like dehydrator made jerky. It just doesn't compare. 
This man knows what he's talking about!  Is that you mom? 
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I never cook jerky. I use a recipe from Alton Brown Use flank steak and just dry it. I don't use his method of filters and a box fan. I lay it out on a cooling rack with fans blowing on it. Takes about 12 hrs. Cooking jerky doesn't preserve it, it just cooks it. Have the right balance of salt, acid, water removal is what you need to actually preserve the meat. |
+1 to everything he just said |
| I like to make restructured jerky from no less than 95% lean ground sirlion. I buy seasoning mix from Mandeville Company, Inc. 2800 Washington Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55411 Toll Free Number: (800) 328-8490. $7 will get you enough seasoning and cure to mix with 25# on ground sirloin. It take 4-6 hours in my American Harvest dehydrator to make. I mix up the seasoning and beef and let it sit over night in the frig. The next dat I take it out mix again and spread it 1/4" thick on a cutting board. I then slice the meat dough pattie into 1" strips 4" long and place them on the dehydrator pans. You may have to wipe off fat that forms on the surface while drying with a towel. Do not add any water when mixing, this will prolong the dry time. Use the highest heat setting on the dehydrator. Good luck! |
Interesting, I might try that next time. OK, the butcher in this ghetto had no top round but had something similar to flank steak called milanesa? Had 1.5lbs cut into 3/16" strips. Now it's marinating in a mix of soy sauce, Worchesthcjhitreydfgusschires sauce, liquid smoke, A1 and a bunch of black pepper. I'll get more creative with the next batch if this one doesn't kill me. Feel free to keep posting ideas/suggestions! Thanks again! |
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Well, after marinating for a couple days, I patted the liquid off and added salt & more pepper after loading into trays. About 10 hrs later, some was what looked to be "done" (about 3/4) and the rest looked like it could use more time. I can't believe it's this fast & easy! Lessons learned: Consistency is VERY important to get everything ready at the same time (as a poster above warned me). The thinner slices of meat are pretty dry/crispy and the thicker slices are what I was going for texture-wise. My crappy butcher sliced them from razor-thin to 3/8"+ from frozen steaks (which I would think to be easier to cut accurately). I may buy a meat slicer if I get a little better next time. Don't use milanesa steak (now that I know what it is). It's a heck of a lot tougher than flank steak and definitely more tough than top round. This shit really should be ground for dogmeat (unless marinating longer than two days or tenderizing might help). I'm going to try sea salt or something else next time (just had that subtle table-salt flavor that I don't like). Probably going to add something sweet to the mix next time (any suggestions, I was thinking brown sugar) as well as something spicy (got plenty of spicy down here). Everything considered, I'm not ready for the gunshow but I've paid for worse than I made. 1.5lbs of jerky for under $7.00 (at local convenience stores, the home-made stuff sells for about $7.00 for 4 oz.) Being smarter with ingredients, I think I can get under $4.00 for 1.5 lbs (I dumped about 4 cups of marinade). Thank you guys sooo much for your help, I found a new hobby! |
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Good jerky marinade ingrediants are stuff like (not necessarily all at one time): Soy Sauce Black Pepper Cayenne Pepper Cock sauce (Sriracha hot chili sauce) Garlic minced, or powder Brown Sugar Non-Iodized salt Honey Molasses Pepper Flakes Maple Syrup You can use water to make a brine or do it dry or whatever. There are many ways that work.  Almost all of them taste good. You can glaze with honey or similar stuff, and sprinkle with pepper flakes near the end of smoking/drying to make a sweet/hot. |
(Oy!)