Can we Let's Talk about Beef Jerky?

Funny thing, that Granny turned me off to beef jerky (store bought.)

She didn't cook much--hated it, in fact!

But one thing Grandma did do was steal her sister-in-law's recipe for the best dern jerky you'd ever taste.

I work a lot on the road and usually grab a bag from the gas store. A typical breakfast consists of cold black coffee and peppered jerky..an offering that'll wake the dead.

I usually go with my boi, Oberto. But I recently found a brand called No Man's Land (apt name,) that reminded me of the old family recipe.

I've tried a lot. A LOT, but I can't fathom about 95% of store-boughts. They're either too chewy or taste like they were dropped in a puddle of soy sauce and forgotten. If you have to work jerky in your mouth half a day, then no thanks. If it's dangerous to dentures, that's a fail. Some are just oily and have bizarre flavors.

I've tried the commercial brands. I've tried a lot of "craft" and "gourmet" 2oz. packs for 17.99. I've even snapped into a Slim Jim and got squirted by some terrible greasy ooze.."mechanically separated chickens indeed!" (check the ingredients yo)

Grandma's jerky was not the product of a chef, connoisseur, or critic. It was just damn good jerky and the family demanded copious amounts.

The texture wasn't rubbery, which I find a lot of store brands to be. It had a weird quality like a good steak. Crispy on the outside, but melty and delicious once those salivary enzymes got a bite. It was firm, but somewhat crumbly and flaky. You bit into Grandma's jerky and it bit back, but only with the strength of a little puppy dog. It was like a stale meat cookie, but trust me it worked!

Red chili powder courtesy of New Mexico took the flavor out of this world! It was smoky and had a teasing heat. It's hard not to like red chili. Try some dried mangos with chili next time you see a road-side stand in the southwest.

Grandma sliced thin, about 1/8th inch and used marbled cuts (which you don't see in store bought at all!) These slices were striated with small strips and flecks of spicy, sweet fat (umami and sweetness much like bacon.)

No store-bought has even come close.

I haven't had this stuff in years. If I ever get my hands on some dehydrators...Dayummm!

What labels do you enjoy? How do you make yours?

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

K... so out with it!

Give us the recipe my love.... i wants it!!

Love me some jerky

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

I absolutely love a good beef jerky! I try all kinds like you have. Recently I bought a $20.00 bag of angus organic grass fed at our farmers market. It was disgusting, crumbly and tasted like dog food smells- I was so disappointed.

There is a newer brand sold in the stores that is really good by Lorissa's Kitchen:

lorissaskitchen.com...



ETA: I also would like to have your grandma's recipe.

I make beef jerky all the time. No store has anything like it

I start off with choice Black Angus London Broil. I have the butcher slice it for me. It only takes a few minutes. I have my own deli slicer, but that's a step I like to skip, and the butcher will gladly do it fast and free.

My dehydrator is a top of the line polished stainless steel TSM with 1/4 mesh stainless trays.

I do many different marinades, and have two different batches in the fridge right now. I like a little fat on it, and refrigeration isn't mandatory, but fat can go rancid. It doesn't if kept in the fridge.

Here is my favorite that I made up myself, and people love it

70% Soyvay very terryaki sauce
30% concentrated OJ (frozen undiluted concentrate)
several teaspoons of hot toasted sesame oil
dried red chili pepper bits (like what is served with pizza)
fresh Tellicherry pepper corns cracked coarse.

Marinade for 2 to 3 days, then lay on the drying trays and crack more fresh pepper corns over the top of them.
put in the dehydrator or oven, set for 155 degrees, and let it go for 4 to 6 hours, depending on how tender or dry you like it

This is a topic i can fully get behind. I have been a fan of Old Trapper particularly their peppered jerky.

I used to buy a bit of jerky when I was delivering pizzas. Can be eaten on the road with minimal difficulty. Jack Links is particularly nasty(kinda like the famous confection crunchy frog). I think I tried the Lorissa's and it was pretty good but the Old Trapper was the best I found in stores.

On a drive back to Vegas from Sedona came across some dude selling it out of his car, just south of Flagstaff. Dude was tough out there selling jerky in the snow lol. His buffalo jerky was the best I've ever had. It was really cold when bought so we put it on the dash with the heat on and soon enough it softened up and was heavenly.

Love a good beef jerky

Tillamook peppered slabs on Amazon

People Choice peppered also Amazon ain't bad

Jeff's famous has lots of flavors but isn't worth the price

Old Trapper is what I usually find in convenience stores.

Jack Links Meh



but the best jerky ever for me is smoked loooooo and slooooo in a smoker preferably a Big Green Egg

they have a variety marinades here but I usually tweak the hell out of the marinade anyway, a little apple cider vinegar more pepper a touch honey but
its the smoke and the drying time and temperature that make this recipe the bomb and if I had to choose one food on a desert island this would be it.

www.nakedwhiz.com/WiseOneRecipes.pdf

LOL its long process but Ive had fantastic results using their recipes and cooking times, couple of things help the process
I like marinating in gallon zip lock bags this way you can tweak the marinade on different batches and of course it helps that we have a second
refrigerator in the garage to pile in multiple bags #2 get those disposable round grill screens Walmart used to have them and I mean 10-15 of them
next just a cheap round large pizza pan I use this to dump all the marinated meat in a pile and start that in the drying process rotating pieces top to bottom
till they are semi dry them when they are easier to work with place pieces on screens and stack them on top of each other fill them cause they are
gonna shrink over the 8-10 hours, I normally rotate them every 3-hours or so.

I like to do my batches over night as long as you can control the temp and keep it low enough. LOL One night I was doing an extremely large batch like 7-8 pounds
and was checking on it around 3 in the morning and I locked myself out of the house. Well I knew I wasn't gonna starve LOL but didn't want to wake up my girlfriend
so I grabbed the throw rug on the deck and covered up on that cool September morning, by the time 6 rolled around I had healthy portion for breakfast with water
from the hose and waited for her to come down stairs and let me in. LOL she thought it was the funniest thing seeing me out there wrapped in carpet eat jerky at
630 in the morning

Dang I guess I grew up in jerky country. Old Trapper's facility is still in my hometown; Tillamook was an hour away.

When I was a boy, local businesses sponsored the youth soccer teams; there was an Old Trapper team and a Flav-O-Rite team, among others.

One year I was on the Flav-O-Rite team. (They package frozen vegetables.) Our jerseys were dark blue - my favorite color - with red trim. We were all runts-of-the-litter and our team didn't even score one goddamn goal all season.

The most vivid memory I have of playing on that team is Paul, the kid who got AIDS from a blood transfusion. Paul never could play in actual games but it made him happy to come to practices...even after collapsing on the field and coach sprinted out and carried him back to the sideline. That may have been the first time I saw a grown man cry.

Paul always smiled when he was playing soccer. It was just uncanny to me.

The Old Trapper team was a bunch of the farm boys. We played them twice - utterly crushed both times. They could well have looked like Harlem Globetrotters-esque exhibitions, meant to be a joke. Later in life, I would wonder suspiciously who exactly was responsible for assembling the teams.

But anyways, jerky hurts my teeth...can't eat the stuff.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

Best ever is called Mingua Brothers. It's a small company in Kentucky that's sold only around the area. But you can order it online.

Mingua

I like jerky but IMO, it's way overpriced. I'm not that picky either. Just that even the cheapest jerky usually gives me sticker shock.

For the money, I usually find those cheap summer sausages a better buy. Of course they're way more not healthy and I don't even wanna know what they're made of but they're yummy, cheap and reasonably filling.

I suppose at that point you might as well buy a hamburger though.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

If I could slice me up some summer sausage and apply to a cracker with sharp cheddar and yellow mustard while driving, we wouldn't even be in this thread

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
a reply to: BrianFlanders

If I could slice me up some summer sausage and apply to a cracker with sharp cheddar and yellow mustard while driving, we wouldn't even be in this thread

You can also buy bags of those little sausage sections (I don't know what they're called but they're kinda like a Slim Jim sliced into portions only they're thicker. Anyway, they taste very much like summer sausage but are way easier to eat. Assuming you're fine with eating them without cheese and crackers. I used to grab a bag of those at the gas station and chomp on them while driving on a regular basis. I bit my fingers doing that a few times but I'm clumsy.

Of course they're probably also a shortcut to heart disease too so.

Try curing it.

You'll like it, and it's not difficult.

I say no to summer sausage. Never liked that stuff. If you want something for crackers and cheese try your Eastern European marts and get some hard salami. Yummy as all hell.

Bummer for me is the one close to me burned down a few years ago and I don't know if they are ever going to come back. They haven't even rebuilt the mall it was in. Lost a really good Hong Kong restaurant also in that fire. We do have an extensive Chinatown so it's not that big a loss but this one was open almost 24 hours so was great for late night Mongolian Beef.

originally posted by: TheSpanishArcher
I say no to summer sausage. Never liked that stuff. If you want something for crackers and cheese try your Eastern European marts and get some hard salami. Yummy as all hell.

Hmmm. Salami tastes pretty much the same to me. I can get it at the store I go to. I just don't because I don't have a preference for it.

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Hard salami is different than the crap we are used to. It's really hard, no joke but it's absolutely fantastic. You may be referring to what I'm talking about and if you don't like it, well, you don't like it. Spit happens.

It's almost midnight and now I'm jonesing for some. Don't know where I'd even find it. There's a place around the corner that's a Polish market, they might have it. Never really checked the place out as I always went to the one that burned down. I so miss that store, they had some great stuff.

originally posted by: TheSpanishArcher
a reply to: BrianFlanders

Hard salami is different than the crap we are used to. It's really hard, no joke but it's absolutely fantastic. You may be referring to what I'm talking about and if you don't like it, well, you don't like it. Spit happens.

It's almost midnight and now I'm jonesing for some. Don't know where I'd even find it. There's a place around the corner that's a Polish market, they might have it. Never really checked the place out as I always went to the one that burned down. I so miss that store, they had some great stuff.

Can we at least all agree that meat is what's for dinner?

a reply to: BrianFlanders

Gonna cook some cheap sausage here in a few and douse it with syrup. No eggs, hash browns and toast. Just sausage.

I think we agree.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

damn. im starving. brick cheese. salami. and definitely beef jerky in my rucksack. recipe? pls?

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha

What, no recipe?? We need it.