Making Beef Jerky!
Beef Jerky is an excellent snack to have on hand when your traveling. With School coming to a close and summer rapidly approaching, I would imagine that many will be hitting the road. If not to find solace in the wilderness, maybe, just to get away on vacation somewhere. Options at the gas stations are your run of the mill trucker snacks and burritos. Hot foods are hit and miss, and prices are unruly; especially if you’re buying Beef Jerky. But, if you know what you’re doing, you can throw down 20 bucks and spin out over 3 lbs of it!
Size is everything. You don’t want to have your Bottom Round Roast cut to the thickness you’re use to eating. No, you need to cut it thick enough to dehydrate down to the size you are use to eating it. Capiche? No less than 1/8 of inch and no more than 1/4. I always lean to the thicker side. So pick your favorite roast and hand it to your butcher and tell him you need it sliced, against the grain, on the heavy side of an 1/8 inch. Have him show you the first slice before he chops the entire Roast, trust me. You want it about twice as thick raw as you want your final product. Once you get that handled, all you have to do now is Marinade and Dehydrate, and between the two of those it should only take you 3 hours, tops!
Beef Jerky Ingredients:
1 4 to 5 lbs Rump Round Roast or Beef Flank
1 Bottle of Teriyaki Marinade (I’m using Lowry’s but choose your favorite)
Marinate the meat for a Minimum 30 Minutes. If you’d like the flavor through and through, marinate for a few hours, but an overnight marinade is too much. Lay flat on your dehydrator racks. If your using an Oven, you can do the same thing. The only difference is you’ll have to prop open the oven door an inch or two to allow the moisture to escape in order for it to dry out your meat. 150 degrees is what you’re looking for. Only 2 1/2 to 3 hours of cooking time is needed before you have the finished product. And just a helpful tip, you can trim off all the excess fat from each slice just using a pair of scissors. There you have it, Beef Jerky right here in the Poor Man’s Gourmet Kitchen!