Beef Jerky

Yay! Meat snacks! There really aren't enough protein filled meat snacks that can travel with you, not needing refrigeration. Isn't preserving things neat? Salting things, drying them, smoking them, fermenting etc. The historical necessity of preserving food has given us soooo many delicious things that we still love to eat even though we don't need to use these methods anymore. I thought about the Oregon trail a lot while I made this jerky haha! Maybe next I'll churn my own butter by hanging some cream from the top of my covered wagon.

This really is my own recipe. I researched a lot of them and even made one version I found online. They are all really soy sauce heavy and the one I tried was not what I was looking for. I didn't want a really tangy or sweet flavor, but a more smoky savory one. Maggi Seasoning has a very meaty (umami) flavor that is a great addition to this. If you don't have it or want to buy it you could leave it out all together or sub in 1 teaspoon soy sauce.

You don't want to use a really nice cut of meat here, it would be a waste. Use a top or bottom round or a flank steak. This is top round beef from Whole Foods, suggested by the butcher there. Trim any excess fat off of your cuts. Fat doesn't really help jerky out.

If you pop your meat in the freezer for an hour or two it will firm up enough to enable easier and thinner slicing. You don't want it frozen, since that would be too hard to cut through, and you'll still need a really sharp knife! haha you can see the camera lens in the knife! Shiny shiny.

Sliced as thin as I could make them. The beef I bought was very thin so the strips are quite thin as a result.

Salted. You can add as much as 2 tablespoons of salt per pound, but 1-1.5 is better. Otherwise it's just so salty that is the only flavor you'll focus on. Below I used 1.5 tablespoons of kosher salt.

All the dry ingredients added.

Wet ingredients and topped with filtered water.

The coriander will float, but just shake everything up every 12 hours or so. Keep this marinating as long as you can up to 48 hours.

48 hours later...

When you are ready to dry your jerky, remove the pieces from the marinade and lay them flat on some paper towels. Use another towel to press a lot of the liquid out. This will prevent them dripping in the oven and make the dry time shorter.

Use long wooden skewers to pierce the end of each beef strip. Make sure none of the strips are touching, arranging them about 1-2" apart on each stick.

Pulling the top rack pretty far out of the oven makes it easier to position the skewers.

Lay the skewers over the oven grate allowing the strips to hang down for maximum air flow.

Prop your oven open to allow the air to circulate and moisture to leave the oven. Because you have to have your oven on and open for 4+ hours, this is not a great activity for a hot day.

Once the jerky looks dry and is firm to the touch you can remove it from the oven and discard the skewers. 

I lay the jerky out on a paper towel to cool. If it's oily or squishy at all, it isn't finished. A good test is to bend a piece. If it is floppy or oozes a lot of oil- it's not done, if it breaks it's too done. 

You can store your jerky in a closed container. All the sites I read say you can keep jerky for 2-3 months. I wouldn't know since Nate and I pretty much continue to eat it until it's gone... in less than a week.