10 November 2009

Homemade Beef Jerky

We recently got out my mom's dehydrator to make some jerky to take camping.  This is the best jerky I've ever had.  All it is is soy sauce and smoke flavoring; no funny spices or anything like that.  The liquid smoke comes in mesquite (seen here) and hickory.  It was hard to choose between the two.  We had a London Broil sliced 1/8 inch thin, marinated the meat for about 6-10 minutes in a mixture of 3 parts soy sauce to 1 part smoke flavoring.  You can adjust this to your taste buds.  We put them in the dehydrator for about 18 hours.  Any longer and it would have been too dry.  We'd probably even take them out earlier, but only by a couple of hours.




Yummy, jerky!!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

You are now the second person I know that makes home made beef jerky. I might have to get me a dehydrator now :)

Joanna said...

Oh my gosh, it's great. So far we've made dried apples, bananas and yogurt on top of the jerky. We might try tomatoes, too. The apples were a total hit. They were crispy and chewy at the same time. Yummy. The yogurt is a hit with the girls. We've put some sort of jam in it and they really like it. I'd get it just for the jerky myself. I really enjoy jerky but I never buy it because it's so expensive. The smoke flavoring was a couple bucks, the meat was $8 and we got 5 times or more the amount you get in a package of jerky. And on top of that there are no preservatives...since jerky needs preservatives you know.

Johanna said...

I like jerky, but right now dried stuff is a no-no because of the yeast that naturally grows on it as it dries and after. We are allergic to it. I know you're shocked to hear that...

Joanna said...

Oh my word, Johanna. It's easier to answer what you're NOT allergic to than what you are allergic to. Poor you! My bottom lip is sticking waaayyyy out because I feel so badly for you guys.

Tina said...

I really enjoy jerky... but am curious - I have heard that dehydrators use INSANE amounts of electricity. Given that we pay our bills in pounds ££ - I worry that it would add to our already over-inflated bill... Have you noticed?

Joanna said...

Hmm, haven't really notice at all. I'll have to pay attention to the next bill.

Leah said...

We have a dehydrator. We've used it for some fruits, no jerky yet though. It seemed kind of tricky timing it right, but maybe we just need more practice. We really enjoyed dried mangoes and pears. I thought the banana chips would turn out great, but we haven't had much luck with that yet.

As for electricity, I'm not really sure how much it uses. But it does take several hours and it makes the whole house smell like whatever you're drying.