Well, BB very kindly bought us a dehydrator recently inspired by a number of links to the very reasonable products around at the £25 to £30 mark. We really wanted one to preserve surplus garden produce (chillis etc.) prior to getting an Aga back on out next move (the cool ovens in Agas are great for drying!).
Anyway, weve dried some herbs and so forth but I had a hankering for some jerky and I though Id do a few photos of the process since a few people are interested.
I decided to do some measurements to calculate amounts I can process at a time, so started of with 500g of lean beef.
This is a nice lean cut, but fats can make dried meats go rancid so I trimmed of any larger fatty areas.
Next step is to slice it thinly. I like to slice across the grain of the meat since it makes it much easier to eat when cut that way. I keep the strips about 5mm thick at the most you get a lot it seems as you are cutting.
This is the grain of the meat (left to right)
These are the strips you get a LOT
Next step is to marinade the meat this tenderises the meat and adds flavour. I like mine spicy!
I put all the strips into a Ziploc bag and added Tabasco, Soy, Worcester sauce, barbecue spice and chilli flakes
I then gently rolled and massaged the meat to drive the flavour in
Finally the bag was left in the fridge overnight to soak up all the flavours
Next morning, BB lined the bottom of the dehydrator with tin foil in case of drips. The meat neatly covered one tray of the dehydrator. So thats helpful I have 5 trays on my dehydrator so I know now I can process 2.5kg of meat at a time (more if I slice more thickly, but then it wouldnt be my favourite!)
Heres how it looks after 30 minutes. You can see already how its shrinking and all the surface liquid has gone
After 2 hours. I was checking regularly to know when it was right. This was still soft and squishy to the touch. I like it just bendy but hard and fully dry
After 7 hours we had it done. Heres the finished article. Amazing how much it reduces in size.
In fact I weighed it. There was 150g or just under a third of the original weight.
Well thats it you dont need a dehydrator to do this its just that its set up for lower temperatures and blows air through. The house smells great! You could achieve this in a cool electric oven by hanging the meat on toothpicks through the bars or spreading it on wire trays. A cool Aga oven or solar dehydrator work really well too.
Oh - its at least as good as oven jerky too - I feel a 5lb batch coming on
Red
Anyway, weve dried some herbs and so forth but I had a hankering for some jerky and I though Id do a few photos of the process since a few people are interested.
I decided to do some measurements to calculate amounts I can process at a time, so started of with 500g of lean beef.
This is a nice lean cut, but fats can make dried meats go rancid so I trimmed of any larger fatty areas.
Next step is to slice it thinly. I like to slice across the grain of the meat since it makes it much easier to eat when cut that way. I keep the strips about 5mm thick at the most you get a lot it seems as you are cutting.
This is the grain of the meat (left to right)
These are the strips you get a LOT
Next step is to marinade the meat this tenderises the meat and adds flavour. I like mine spicy!
I put all the strips into a Ziploc bag and added Tabasco, Soy, Worcester sauce, barbecue spice and chilli flakes
I then gently rolled and massaged the meat to drive the flavour in
Finally the bag was left in the fridge overnight to soak up all the flavours
Next morning, BB lined the bottom of the dehydrator with tin foil in case of drips. The meat neatly covered one tray of the dehydrator. So thats helpful I have 5 trays on my dehydrator so I know now I can process 2.5kg of meat at a time (more if I slice more thickly, but then it wouldnt be my favourite!)
Heres how it looks after 30 minutes. You can see already how its shrinking and all the surface liquid has gone
After 2 hours. I was checking regularly to know when it was right. This was still soft and squishy to the touch. I like it just bendy but hard and fully dry
After 7 hours we had it done. Heres the finished article. Amazing how much it reduces in size.
In fact I weighed it. There was 150g or just under a third of the original weight.
Well thats it you dont need a dehydrator to do this its just that its set up for lower temperatures and blows air through. The house smells great! You could achieve this in a cool electric oven by hanging the meat on toothpicks through the bars or spreading it on wire trays. A cool Aga oven or solar dehydrator work really well too.
Oh - its at least as good as oven jerky too - I feel a 5lb batch coming on
Red
