Do I Need to Cure Beef Jerky

Making jerky at domicile can be much more economical than ownership it. Consider that buying a ½-ounce package of hasty costs $1 or more. That is at least $32 per pound for the finished product. Bootleg hasty only requires the purchase of lean, whole-muscle cuts such as a rump roast or chuck tender roast, some simple ingredients and a little time. For example, if a rump roast has a retail price of $5 per pound and you lot can make approximately 40 per centum of the purchase weight of store-bought beefiness into jerky, your cost for homemade jerky would be $12.l per pound.

Traditionally, jerky was fabricated using the sun, air current and smoke from fires to preserve and extend the shelf life of meat. Drying and smoking results in meat products that have a long storage life, allowing for the preservation of large amounts of meat that could be stored and consumed afterwards.

American Indians dried thin strips of game meats nether the sun to make a production called "boppa," which was preserved without salt or smoke. "Pemmican" was a mixture of berries or suet with pounded dried meat.

Today jerky is produced from thin strips of meat (beef, pork, lamb, venison, poultry) or footing and formed meat. Many varieties of commercial seasonings are available for abode jerky making, or you tin develop your own recipes by post-obit a few simple steps.

Meat Source

Jerky tin can exist made using whole muscles or ground meats; even so, for habitation processing, whole-muscle cuts are recommended because they result in a safer, more traditional jerky production.

Substantially, any meat source can be used to make jerky, only typically, lean cuts such as beef circular roasts or pork loin are used. Lean cuts are more desirable because fat can get rancid during storage, resulting in off flavors.

Can You Make Jerky from Basis Meat?

According to researchers from the University of Georgia and Colorado State, "For ground beef jerky prepared at home, safe concerns related toEast. coli O157:H7 are minimized if the meat is precooked to 160 F prior to drying."

Source: Effects of Preparation Methods on the Microbiological Safe of Home-Stale Meat Jerky. Journal of Food Protection, Vol. 67, No. 10, 2004, Pages 2337-2341.

Nonmeat Ingredients

While the simplest jerky consists of dried meat, ingredients often are added to amend taste, color and texture. Salt is the nearly normally added ingredient and is used to improve season, enhance the storage life and remove moisture from the product.

Occasionally, "cure" may be added to the raw meat. Cure is the ingredient nitrite, which typically is added every bit sodium nitrite, only information technology besides may include sodium nitrate. Nitrite is used to set up the color of the jerky. Nitrite too is a potent antioxidant, which prevents spoilage during storage, and a flavor enhancer.

The corporeality of cure added is very pocket-sized, in the parts per million range. When purchased, it commonly is mixed with common tabular array salt.

Unremarkably bachelor curing salts include "Tender Quick," "Speed Cure," "Instacure" and "Prague Pulverization." These products are bachelor at grocery stores and often at sporting goods stores.

Tender Quick contains nitrite and nitrate, whereas the other products contain only nitrite. The nitrite-only products normally are pinkish and then they are not confused with regular tabular array salt. Be sure to follow instructions on the curing salts because excessive amounts may crusade wellness issues.

Spices such equally blackness pepper or garlic are other common ingredients. However, almost any spice tin can be added to a jerky formulation, resulting in a wide range of flavors. Other ingredients such as soy sauce, sugar, teriyaki or barbecue spice can be added to change the flavor.

Processing

Several methods can be used to make hasty. For whole-muscle jerky, the first step is to slice the meat thinly into strips no more than ¼ inch thick. Having the meat near frozen tin make slicing easier. Colder meat also is ameliorate from a food safety perspective.

After slicing, other ingredients can be added. The best way to impart flavor into whole-muscle hasty is to apply a brine or marinade. Some basic recipes are provided in this publication.

For near dwelling hasty product, raw, sliced meat is placed into boiling marinade to cook the meat earlier drying. If you have a smoker or cooker that can reach high enough temperatures to fully cook the meat, you tin can place the hasty into a nonboiling marinade and permit it to soak at fridge temperatures for four to 25 hours.

If using a cooker or smoker to make jerky, exist sure the product's temperature reaches at least 160 F to ensure whatsoever bacteria are destroyed.

Later on marinating, jerky strips should be laid out in a pan or nutrient dehydrator in a single layer. If using a food dehydrator, be sure the temperature tin can be prepare high enough to fully melt the meat. If using a smoker, the meat should be brought to a fully cooked temperature equally smoke is applied.

Practise not smoke the jerky at lower temperatures and terminate at a higher temperature because some bacteria can survive the drying process and not be killed during cooking.

Nutrient Prophylactic Issues

But marinating and drying meat does not ensure that potentially harmful leaner have been killed. Several types of bacteria tin survive the drying process and cause foodborne illnesses when the product is consumed. In most every case, meat must exist fully cooked before the drying process starts to kill harmful bacteria. In the by, foodborne illnesses have been associated with the consumption of jerky, which prompted changes in recommendations for dwelling jerky making.

In February 1995, 93 people in New Mexico were diagnosed with salmonellosis due to improperly processed jerky. The processors' process consisted of drying partially frozen beef strips three hours at 140 F, and so holding the meat at 115 F for 19 hours. In Nov 1995, 11 people in Oregon were infected with Eastward. coli O157:H7 establish in homemade venison jerky. This jerky reportedly had been dried at 125 F to 135 F for 12 to 18 hours.

Commercially produced hasty products also have been linked to foodborne illness outbreaks. Four salmonella-related illnesses linked to turkey jerky were reported in 2012 in Minnesota. 20-one people became ill with salmonellosis linked with chicken jerky produced in New Hampshire in 2013.

These illnesses have raised concerns about the safety of traditional drying methods for making jerky from meat and poultry at home. The U.S. Section of Agriculture recommends that meat be heated to 160 F and poultry to 165 F before the dehydrating process to destroy pathogenic microorganisms.

In addition, have special precautions when making homemade jerky from venison or other wild game. Game, including venison and wild game birds, can get heavily contaminated with fecal bacteria, depending on the skill of the hunter in dressing the animal and location of the wound.

Commercially processed carcasses normally are chilled rapidly, merely game carcasses frequently are held at temperatures that could allow bacteria to multiply. Several universities take conducted experiments on the survival of bacteria during drying.

The general conclusion is that the meat needs to be heated prior to drying and that adding cure (sodium nitrite) to the formulation increases the destruction of bacteria, compared with jerky without added cure. When making whole-musculus jerky at home, sliced meat strips should exist precooked in a hot marinade prior to drying. The hot marinade will destroy bacteria on the meat.

Nutrient Safe Guidelines

Leaner can spread through a work surface area and contaminate equipment and work surfaces. To reduce your risk of foodborne illness:

• Launder your hands for at to the lowest degree 20 seconds with soap and h2o before start to piece of work and subsequently changing tasks or after doing anything that could contaminate your hands, such equally sneezing or using the bathroom.
• Outset with clean equipment and clean it thoroughly later using it. Be sure all surfaces that come into contact with meat and other hasty ingredients are clean.
• Sanitize surfaces with a solution of 1 tablespoon of chlorine bleach per gallon of water. Allow to air dry.
• If using frozen meat, thaw information technology in a refrigerator (at forty F or beneath) on the lowest shelf to prevent juices from dripping on ready-to-eat foods. Never thaw meat on the kitchen counter.
• Use refrigerated footing meat within ii days or whole red meats within three to five days.
• Keep raw meat separate from other foods.
• Marinate raw meat in the refrigerator.
• Steam or roast meat to 160 F and poultry to 165 F before dehydrating it.
• Dry meats in a food dehydrator that has an adjustable temperature punch and volition maintain a safe temperature of at to the lowest degree 130 to 140 F throughout the drying process. Don't rely on the dial settings when using a food dehydrator.
• Measure the temperature of the dehydrator with a calibrated thermometer during processing. Place the metallic stem of a dial thermometer between dehydrator trays or create an opening for the stem by drilling a hole through the side of the tray.

*Use home-dried hasty inside two months.

Jerky Marinade*

¼ c. soy sauce
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
¼ tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. hickory smoke-flavored salt

*for 1½ to ii pounds of lean meat such equally beef, pork or venison

Case: Hasty Making Procedures Using Marinade

1. Prefreeze meat to be made into hasty so it will be easier to piece.

2. Cut partially thawed meat into long slices no more than ¼ inch thick. For tender jerky, cutting the meat at right angles to long muscles (across the grain). Remove as much visible fat as possible to assist prevent off flavors.

3. Gear up two to 3 cups of marinade of your selection in a large sauce pan.

iv. Bring the marinade to a full rolling eddy over medium heat. Add a few meat strips, making sure they are covered by the marinade. Reheat to full boil.

five. Remove pan from range. Using tongs, remove strips from hot marinade (work quickly to prevent overcooking) and place in unmarried, nonoverlapping layers on drying racks. (Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the meat has been precooked.) Add more than marinade if needed.

6. Dry at 140 to 150 F in dehydrator, oven or smoker. Test for doneness by letting a slice cool. When cool, it should crack only not interruption when aptitude. The meat should not have any moist or underdone spots.

7. Refrigerate the hasty overnight in plastic freezer bags, and so cheque over again for doneness. If necessary, dry out farther. Soaking the strips in marinade before precooking is non advised because the marinade could become a source of bacteria. Putting unmarinated strips straight into the boiling marinade minimizes a cooked flavour and maintains the condom of the marinade.

Yield: Five pounds of fresh meat should weigh approximately 2 pounds later drying or smoking.

Example: Hasty Making Using a Hot Pickle Cure

1. Slice iv pounds of meat (¼-inch-thick strips) with the grain. Use lean meat free of fat and connective tissue.

two. Spread out meat and sprinkle on iii tablespoons salt, 2 teaspoons ground blackness pepper and 2 tablespoons saccharide. Put the meat in a container and refrigerate for 24 hours.

3. Pound the meat on both sides to work in the spices. Optional: Dip strips of meat in a liquid smoke solution (five parts h2o to one part liquid smoke) for 1 to two seconds for added flavour.

iv. Make a brine by dissolving ¾ loving cup salt, ½ cup carbohydrate and 2 tablespoons ground black pepper in a gallon of water. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar.

5. Bring the brine to a low to medium boil (175 F). Immerse the fresh meat strips (a few at a time) into the boiling brine until they turn gray (one to two minutes). Remove meat from the alkali, using clean tongs or other utensils that take non contacted raw meat.

6. Spread out meat on a clean dehydrator rack or a make clean rack in the meridian half of a kitchen oven. If you lot use a kitchen oven, cook the hasty with the door open for approximately ane 60 minutes at 300 F, and and so cook it for at least one hour with the oven door closed to fully cook the meat. And then lower the oven temperature to the lowest possible setting and dry for nine to 24 hours or until the jerky reaches the desired dryness.

7. Remove jerky from oven earlier it becomes likewise hard or brittle. Properly stale jerky should crack when bent in half just should not break into ii pieces.

8. Store jerky in clean jars or plastic bags, or wrap it in freezer newspaper and freeze. For best quality, store in a sealed container and use within 2 weeks. Refrigerate or freeze for long-term storage.

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Source: https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/publications/food-nutrition/jerky-making-producing-a-traditional-food-with-modern-processes

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