How to Make Jerky Soft Again

If you've never made beef jerky before, now is the time—information technology's easier than you retrieve! It'south a uncomplicated procedure, y'all can use your own smoker, and information technology tastes meliorate and costs less than what y'all can buy at a store. Preparing beef jerky at dwelling house that'due south guaranteed to be safe to eat tin be tricky, just we have a recipe, expert tips, and the thermal secrets you lot need for beefiness jerky success!

Preserving meat is an ancient exercise to utilize every role of the animal. Today's beefiness jerky is delicious, applied, and convenient. Since it doesn't require refrigeration, it'due south ideal for campers, backpackers, whatsoever outdoor enthusiast, or anyone who needs portable, shelf-stable, nutritionally-dumbo food.

Top seven Tips for Perfect Beef Jerky

In his book, Project Smoke, BBQ expert Steven Raichlen shares 7 key tips for beef jerky success.

1. Employ lean cuts of meat with very piffling connective tissue such as height or bottom beef round. Fatty meats turn rancid quickly and will shorten the shelf life of your jerky.
2. Cut the meat into thin slices. 1/8 to 1/4-inch (1/3 to two/3-cm) slices work best. Partially freeze the meat for easy slicing (well-nigh an hour in the freezer), or accept your butcher slice it for you lot.
3. You can turn whatsoever type of meat into hasty! Beefiness is the most popular, but y'all tin brand hasty with venison, moose, mule deer, antelope, elk, rabbit, and bison.
4. Heat to a nutrient-rubber temperature of 150-160°F (71°C).
   1. When making turkey or chicken jerky, exist certain it reaches a food-safe temperature of 165°F (74°C).
5. Drying meat requires depression temperatures (160-180°F [71-82°C]). A depression drying temperature is crucial. If the surround is likewise hot, the exterior of the meat will grade a crust that does not allow the interior moisture to evaporate. This is great for steaks on the grill, but too much oestrus works against the jerky making procedure.
6. Maintain constant low-temperature oestrus in your cooker. Electric smokers are cracking for jerky because they maintain consequent low temperatures very well.
7. Shop jerky in zipper-lock plastic bags. Package the jerky while it'due south still warm. Condensation will collect in the bag equally information technology cools, softening the meat.

Shelf Stability and Food Rubber

Beef jerky is shelf-stable because nearly all of the moisture has been removed. Microorganisms cannot grow in the absence of wet, and then spoilage is diminished. Beef jerky is most commonly prepared by dehydration, cooking in a depression-temperature oven, and smoking. The use of curing salts helps to destroy pathogens.

➤ Water Activeness

Commercially prepared beef jerky is made in facilities that are monitored past the health section for food prophylactic. They as well have the equipment needed to accurately decide h2o activity. H2o activity is the water available in a food product for microorganisms to abound. Shelf stable beef jerky has a water action level of 0.70 to 0.85.

Most people who make jerky at dwelling house estimate it to exist done at water activeness levels higher than 0.85. For this reason, other methods of preparation and testing for doneness must be used to ensure the safety of your dried meats.

Homemade beef jerky is far more than probable to cause foodborne illness than store-bought hasty. Thermal denaturation of bacteria (explained below) is the simplest sure-fire way to make sure your food is safe to eat.

How do You Know When Beefiness Jerky is  "Done?"

Jerky can be considered "done" and safety to eat just when it has been heated sufficiently to destroy any pathogens present and is dry enough to be shelf-stable. —Making Hasty at Dwelling Safely, Pacific Northwest Extension

The only way to know if your jerky has been heated sufficiently is with accurate thermometers. The Thermapen's ^® sensor is in the very one/8-inch of the probe's reduced tip, making it possible to measure the temperature of thin pieces of meat like hasty.

For proper heating and drying, monitor the internal temperature of your smoker with an alarm thermometer like the ThermoWorks ^®  ChefAlarm ^® with a Pro-Series ^® Air Probe and Grate Clip.

Safely Making Jerky Without a Smoker

If you lot're using a nutrient dehydrator that does not reach the temperature range of 160-180°F (71-82°C), you lot tin still ensure its food condom with a quick boosted step.

➤ Postal service-Drying Heating

Afterwards your jerky is completely dried, oestrus it in a 275°F (135°C) oven for 10 minutes. Spot-cheque the internal temperature of your jerky with a Thermapen to be sure it'south reached a temperature of 150-160°F (66-71°C). With this final, quick step you can be sure your jerky is pathogen-gratuitous.

Beef Hasty Recipe

Powerful Secret Ingredient: This recipe is based on Meathead'due south Marinaded Beefiness Hasty Recipe. There is a significant corporeality of grated fresh ginger in the marinade—don't skimp on this ingredient. Ginger contains a protease enzyme called zingibain that breaks downwardly the meat fibers and will make the resulting jerky far more than tender than it would be otherwise.

Ingredients

• 2-3 pounds (7/8 to i-1/3 kg) trimmed lean meat such as middle of round or top or lesser circular
• 1 loving cup (237 ml) soy sauce
• i/4 loving cup (59 ml) apple juice
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• two tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/two cup (118 ml [170 grams by weight]) honey
• five tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
• i tbsp coarsely ground blackness pepper
• 1 tbsp hot sauce

Instructions

Prep

• Freeze the meat while preparing the marinade. The meat should exist but partially frozen—firm, but withal sliceable.

• Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a medium-sized bowl and whisk to mix well. Set aside
• One time the meat is partially frozen, slice into i/8 to 1/4 inch (1/3 to two/3 cm) slices.

➤ Cut With or Confronting the Grain?

Beef jerky is widely bachelor cut both with and against the grain. If you lot cut your slices against the grain it'll be easier to chew. If it'south cut with the grain the protein fibers that become firm and pliable through the drying process will give your jaw a workout. It'southward up to you.

• Place the meat slices into a gallon size zipper lock bag and cascade the marinade over the meat. Massage the meat in the bag to evenly distribute the marinade.
• Set the bag into a container or sheet pan on the lesser shelf in your refrigerator and chill for 24 hours.

Cook Day

• Oestrus your smoker to 160-180°F (71-82°C). Track the internal temperature of your cooker past securing a Pro-Serial ^® Air Probe to the grate of your smoker with a grate clip. We're using a ChefAlarm (yous can also use Smoke™).
• Fix your ChefAlarm'southward high alarm to 185°F (85°C), and the low alarm to 155°F (68°C). Having these alarms fix will help y'all go on your smoker at the perfect cooking temperature.
• Add wood chips or chunks and permit smoke to develop while you're preparing the meat.
• Drain the meat from the marinade and pat dry out with paper towels.

The real secret, whether smoker or oven, is to prep your jerky earlier drying. Removing the meat from the marinade and patting off the excess wet is crucial for even cooking. —Dr. Pepper Jalapeño Beef Jerky, Hey Grill, Hey

• Arrange the meat slices onto heatproof grilling mesh or metal cooling racks, being sure none of the slices are touching. For even drying the slices need room for air circulation.
• Set the racks or mesh onto your smoker's grate, close the lid, and let it cook.

➤ Proceed the Temperature Low and the Air Circulation High

If you wish, you tin prop open up the lid of your cooker to let heat escape in gild to keep the cooking temperature down. This will also increase air menstruum. If yous normally utilise a water pan, skip it today. The goal is aridity non moisturizing. —Not an Elitist Wiggle Beef Hasty, AmazingRibs.com

• Total drying time varies and depends on how well your smoker'due south temperature is maintained, humidity, the type of marinade used, and the thickness and size of your meat slices. Information technology will likely take about three-6 hours.
  • When checking the jerky, yous're looking for signs of progression toward doneness such equally shrinkage. The finished jerky should be leathery, bend easily with simply a few cracks, and have no wet spots.

➤ Fun Fact: Meat is 70-75% water. Sixteen ounces of fresh meat will make about four ounces of finished hasty.

• Later on you've judged that your jerky appears to exist done, spot-check its internal temperature with a Thermapen. In one case you accept verified an internal temperature of 150-160°F (66-71°C) and the jerky is thoroughly dry, remove from your smoker.

• Experts recommend placing the warm hasty into plastic containers or bags slightly ajar to allow condensation to soften the driest areas of the meat.
  • If you lot tin can keep yourself and everyone else from devouring the fresh jerky, information technology is also recommended to shop the cooled jerky at room temperature for 24 hours to let information technology to "condition." The workout time period allows the wet left in the meat to equilibrate throughout the pieces of jerky.

Jerky Economics

The [procedure] of turning meat into jerky takes time but it's not a difficult process. That'south a large role of why information technology costs so much in stores. Pound for pound it'due south some of the most expensive meat you tin can buy, but if you don't heed putting in a trivial piece of work you can make your own jerky for a fraction of the toll. —Smoked Beef Jerky & Smoked Deer Jerky, HowToBBQRight.com

Storage

After it's been packaged in a sealed container, your bootleg beefiness jerky can exist stored at room temperature, refrigerated, or frozen. Label and appointment the zipper lock bags or containers and then you're sure to know when the best fourth dimension frame will be to consume the jerky depending on the storage method you choose.

• Room Temperature: 2 weeks
• Refrigerated: 3 to vi months
• Frozen: Upward to one year

Making your own beef jerky is easier than you lot think, and foolproof when yous can track temperatures precisely. Once y'all taste it for yourself you'll be hooked!

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Products Used:

ChefAlarm	Pro-Serial Air Probe with Grate Clip

	Classic Thermapen

Resources:

Making Hasty at Dwelling Safely, Pacific Northwest Extension (2012)

Projection Smoke, Steven Raichlen

Piece of cake Beefiness Jerky, Meathead of AmazingRibs.com

kaplanbuttere.blogspot.com

Source: https://blog.thermoworks.com/beef/smoke-beef-jerky/

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