Getting your Jerky on with a food dehydrator (pic heavy)
- Thread starter GGTBod
- Start date
Today i am going to be making apple/plum and banana leather (i bought too many when they cheap last week and they are going past best ripeness), once i get myself into action i'll get stuck in and take pics too, i'll either add onto this thread or make another, technically it is still jerky
Great looking stuff! Although i'm not a fan of rubs with jerky. But that's just personal preference.
I've recently been considering an excalibur 9 tray, but alas don't really have the space for it in this shared house. I currently own one of the plastic ones like that, and while it does the job, i often find the swapping around of trays to be a PITA. The excalibur is pricey, but i like that if i know the total time, i'm free to walk away, unlike with my Andrew James model. The models with a central chimney also make fruit leathers a lot more of a pain than they need to be as you can't simply rip off a piece of parchment and you're away.
Do you ever use liquid smoke? I was pleasantly surprised by it (mine is typically a soy, l+p, honey, sugar, liquid smoke, and then whatever catches my fancy be it pineapple juice or chilli flakes etc.
A jerky run is on my "yes dear, whenever i get a chance" list. This rather tempts me to just get it done.
I've recently been considering an excalibur 9 tray, but alas don't really have the space for it in this shared house. I currently own one of the plastic ones like that, and while it does the job, i often find the swapping around of trays to be a PITA. The excalibur is pricey, but i like that if i know the total time, i'm free to walk away, unlike with my Andrew James model. The models with a central chimney also make fruit leathers a lot more of a pain than they need to be as you can't simply rip off a piece of parchment and you're away.
Do you ever use liquid smoke? I was pleasantly surprised by it (mine is typically a soy, l+p, honey, sugar, liquid smoke, and then whatever catches my fancy be it pineapple juice or chilli flakes etc.
A jerky run is on my "yes dear, whenever i get a chance" list. This rather tempts me to just get it done.
Normally my meat jerky in the past has been done with nothing but meat and wood, no spices or marinades, i did take a look at liquid smoke but after reading the ingredients the only thing i was not already adding was caramel colouring, i might give it a try sometime instead of a marinade. The rub was done to imbed as many spices as possible into the end product so that they will impart into my stews when i am in the outdoors so i do not have to carry them in little packets or bottles like i usually do, it has not stopped me enjoying nibbling on a few slabs although it is a pretty intense flavour
I was a little sceptical of using wood smoke, but due to have no means of getting any smokey flavour into it other than some smoked salt or paprika etc, i decided why not, and it worked great, I used about a tablespoon mixed into enough marinade for 4kg of beef (one of those foreign london butchers where you ask for 2 and they say i give you 4 at special price..
. Very hard to find a good quality one at a reasonable price in the UK though, as it's largely an American market. The rubs make sense in that context. I've always made jerky as a snack food for around the house, town, work etc. I've never made it before with the notion of using it for cooking, but certainly see how useful that could be in the wild. No stews for me for the moment though, i've got army boil in a bags to enjoy
We covered the Excalibur and "stacking" dehydrators on the blog this month as part of our series on "home preserving". Its a great machine, but not without its drawbacks if you aren't going to use it extensively.
Don't want to thread jack musing on different dehydration machines and techniques, but it might be worth a read before you drop a three figure sum on one
http://www.englishcountrylife.com/4/post/2015/10/drying-homestead-preserving-part-2.html
Lots of stuff on this forum for me to be reading up on. Think i might even get a subscription (can't say no to full member sales section..). I need something interesting to read and i'm all out of Clive Cussler books for now. He needs to write some more!
As to the dehydrator, fear not, i've done just a teeny bit of reading and such. I was a chef before university, so have a good bit of experience and understanding of all manner of things from dehydrating to smoking (used to hot smoke fish and meat at home, and while i was a fish monger we had a cold smoker the size of the tardis, was pretty epic pulling 50 ox tongues out first thing in the morning
)Just to put it back on topic. Chilli, noooooo thankyou! I don't eat spicy food. Ever.
Fruit leather is sorted and on the racks, i added 3 tablespoons of the chilli sauce and there was a little purée left over and it has a noticeable kick and after tingle, well at least that is how my chilli ravaged taste buds interpret it, when all dry i will add the pics and writeup to the thread
My thoughts exactly, i was even thinking next time of just dropping a couple of whole peppers into the blender, the leftover purée was pretty delicious so i am imagining it will be even better once dry and the flavour concentrates
Well off the back of this great thread I've just bought a dehydrator, I have a fair bit greylag goose meat in the freezer cut in thin slivers like the op. I need to use it up as shooting season is in full swing and no doubt I'll get another before the season out!
Great post, thanks for the inspiration!
Great post, thanks for the inspiration!
The man uses scorpion moruga pepper and zing in one sentence. It either is not hit or I want to hear no more. It'll get in my head and I'll stupidly mention it next time I'm with my partners family, a Trinidad family. Surely there is a term for in-laws if you're not actually married? Terminology be damned, either way I don't want to eat it.
Always good to share Johnny sounds like you are in for some tasty treats with that meat supply.
Dewi mate i didn't, i meant to and forgot, mesmerised by the meat, i made a venison stew last night as i would when out in the woods and it was fekkin awesome, 1 veggie stock cube in 500ml water, 3 handfuls of mixed dehydrated veg (tatties,carrot,leak,onion and turnip), 2 handfuls of broth mix, 8 strips of the venison jerky and 2 handfuls of wholemeal pasta twists thrown in during the last 10 mins of cooking, 2 awesome bowls of broth scoffed down 40 mins after i started cooking, only thing missing was the woods
Dewi mate i didn't, i meant to and forgot, mesmerised by the meat, i made a venison stew last night as i would when out in the woods and it was fekkin awesome, 1 veggie stock cube in 500ml water, 3 handfuls of mixed dehydrated veg (tatties,carrot,leak,onion and turnip), 2 handfuls of broth mix, 8 strips of the venison jerky and 2 handfuls of wholemeal pasta twists thrown in during the last 10 mins of cooking, 2 awesome bowls of broth scoffed down 40 mins after i started cooking, only thing missing was the woods
i'm just one of those English folks who jumped in feet first when our culture diversified and we got the huge influx of exotic spicy food, i eat chillis and spicy food all the time, currently prepping a vindaloo for supper and i am having it with a naan bread with chopped up chillis in it, to me vindaloo is a pleasantly zingy curry, i still like my English grub too like cheese on toast but i have been known to chop a fresh scotch bonnet chilli up seeds and pith and sprinkle it into the cheese before grilling or drizzle my scorpion chilli sauce on it if i want a little extra kick and haven't got any fresh peppers in the house
Just that I went to the supermarket earlier today... works out at £3 for 85g (unless its on special offer) in there... so I figured if you had the weight, you could work out what it would sell for commercially.
Stew sounds good... ended up having a chippy tea tonight, just couldn't be bothered.
Stew sounds good... ended up having a chippy tea tonight, just couldn't be bothered.
I started with 850g venison and about 400gram of top rump after i trimmed all the fat and took some for a stir fry, i had 3 jars of jerky with very little space in them, just weighed the venison i have left and i have over 350grams left
