Making dried meat

[bb07]

I know many people (non-native) that make jerky, quite often from deer. It's cut into long thin strips, often marinated and spiced before being dried in an electric smoker.
Here in the north the native people do things differently. Most of them don't like spicy food. Plain meat and salt is preferred.
Here is the Dene way of making dried meat, usually from moose or caribou. It's cut into thin but quite large pieces. No spices or seasoning is used-pure meat only.
It's dried by smoking over a fire using rotten dry spruce. Once dry it is quite hard and so is pounded to soften it with the back of a hatchet on a flat rock, then stored in cloth bags.
If pounded a lot it can be made into pemmican.
The customary way of eating dried meat here is: break a piece off, 'butter' it with pure lard, and sprinkle with salt. Enjoy!

 

[forestwalker]

Looks interesting. More pictures of the setup? Lots of moose in the freezer...

 

[bb07]

Looks interesting. More pictures of the setup? Lots of moose in the freezer...

Sorry, it turns out that this is my only picture.....

 

[forestwalker]

About what size? Any special design features?

 

[bb07]

Nothing special really, a smokehouse can be whatever size works for what you plan on smoking. I've seen them the size of a closet to as big as a shed. The gable end on mine is open for smoke to escape along with some other holes cut out on the walls, up high.
A lot of people will smoke meat/fish while still at a camp out in the bush. Here four poles are cut and tied at the top to hold them together. This looks sort of like a teepee. Then a horizontal pole is lashed to two of the upright poles, one on each side. Across these two poles are laid small poles to put the meat on. You want the meat high enough above the fire so it doesn't cook. Three feet or more is good, and the fire is for smoke not flames.
If it's breezy, a tarp can be wrapped around the uprights to block wind and hold more smoke in.

 

[forestwalker]

Nothing special really, a smokehouse can be whatever size works for what you plan on smoking. I've seen them the size of a closet to as big as a shed. The gable end on mine is open for smoke to escape along with some other holes cut out on the walls, up high.
A lot of people will smoke meat/fish while still at a camp out in the bush. Here four poles are cut and tied at the top to hold them together. This looks sort of like a teepee.
...
If it's breezy, a tarp can be wrapped around the uprights to block wind and hold more smoke in.

A smoke-tent I've used before, so that I'm familliar with. Allways interesting too see the solutions of others, I need to build a smokehouse myself, so was looking for ideas. My current thoughts are a ply "closet", bricks or stones for the lower bit to keep it from catching fire too easilly, metal mesh with shutters to regulate heat and smoke.

Up further north I've seen Sami drying sheds, basically open structures with mesh (fine and coarse to keep all sizes of pests away) for freeze- and winddrying meat.