finding good beef jerky is hard.. any suggestions?>-Lost
Here is how I make beef jerky:
-get a portion of london broil or whatever type of beef you prefer and trim off the fat.
-cut into thin strips (against the muscle fiber so it isn't difficult to chew off hunks of jerky once dried)
-marinade for a day in frig in covered container (any longer and meat may spoil)
- (my marinade consists of soy sauce, black pepper, garlic powder, black strap molasses, and maybe some red pepper if feeling sadistic with the hot jerky- you can arrange your own variation of this or other spices)
- after marinading for a day dry it in oven or dehydrater. Most people do not have dehydraters and it is easy enough to dehydrate in a conventional oven.
-take the individual pieces of meat, stick toothpick in one end and hang from top oven rack (be sure to place aluminum foil on bottom rack to catch dripping marinade and melting fat)
- dehydrating: turn oven to 125 degrees (any hotter and meat will burn instead of dehydrate/ all you want to do is remove excess moisture from meat)
- leave oven door slightly open so moisture can escape oven (this is VERY important to avoid meat from burning) / I do this by wedging fork in oven door to keep it open a half inch- but don't touch fork with hand once it gets hot
check on jerky from time to time to see if it reached desired moisture level/ depending on your oven it could be anywhere from 2.5 to 4 hours- if you let it go to long it will get tooooo dry and your efforts will have been in vain- if you don't dry it well enough
BUT... I guarantee if you do this right you will get better jerky than you could ever find in the stores. The stuff they sell is outrageously expensive and and even the best quality jerky sold in stores has NEVER come close to how good homemade jerky is.
