Culinary yoU: Ground Beef Jerky

I do not know about your family, but everyone in mine loves some beef jerky. This one time survival food made of dehydrated wild game and or beef and spices was the food of choice of travelers before the time of refrigeration. In fact, drying and dehydrating foods is still a very popular method of preserving both meats and vegetables. The one major advantage we have over our ancestors when it comes to drying meats and making jerky is the types of both wet and dry spices that we have to flavor our meats with. Jerky is a high protein, low carbohydrate food great for athletes, diabetics, and other's who need a nutritious snack that is low in carbohydrates, but still provides plenty of energy.

While I have made lots of jerky over the years using sliced whole meats, in this article I am going to focus on making beef jerky using ground meat. This is the most common form of beef jerky that you will find on your grocers shelves because using ground meats make the finished product easier to eat (i.e. it is not as tough) as using whole strips of meat which is one of the most common ways jerky is made at home. For this article I will be using ground beef, specifically 93/27 or 93% lean ground beef, the other 27% being fat. Now you can use more lean ground beef if you wish, but do not use any ground beef that has a higher fat content of 30% as the high fat content just does not perform as well.

The bottom line, the higher the fat content the lower the shelf life of the product as fats tend to go rancid over time. Wild game such as venison is great for making jerky as it tends to be extremely lean. In fact some hunter's even add a small percentage of ground beef to their venison jerky just to give it a small amount of fat.

The Original Recipe

This is my original base recipe. From this recipe you can add additional cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes if you like your jerky spicy. Like my friend Steve Coyne, I dehydrate my jalapenos and habanero peppers and grind them into powder. For hot and spicy, I simply use these as an alternative to cayenne pepper. For a teriyaki jerky substitute teriyaki marinade for the soy and Worcestershire sauce.

3 pounds ground beef

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon liquid smoke

¾ teaspoon prauge powder no.1 (optional)

½ teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper

Place the ground beef, garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt, black pepper, and optional prauge powder in the mixing bowl of your stand mixer and run until thoroughly mixed. Then add the soy sauce, Worcestershire, and liquid smoke, and then pour it into the mixing bowl with the ground beef. Run your mixer until well combined. Cover and marinate for 3 to 6 hours in the refrigerator. I usually marinate my jerky mixture overnight to allow the flavors to permeate the meat completely.

Chef's Note: If you do not have a stand mixer then use your hands, it works great this way, just make sure you mix all the seasonings and flavoring thoroughly.

Form the meat into strips, about 1/8-1/4” thick, using your jerky gun. If you do not have a jerky gun you can make the jerky into small balls and then flatten them with your hands or a rolling pin between two sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper until they are 1/8 to 1/4" thick, then place them on the trays of your dehydrator.

Dehydrate in a dehydrator at 145 - 155 degrees (F) for 6-12 hours. Place the jerky strips on paper towels to cool and to absorb any excess fat.

Chef's Note: My experience has shown that my ground beef jerky when dehydrated at 155 degrees per my Nesco dehydrator takes only 6 – 7 hours. Of course the way you load your dehydrator and the brand you have may make a difference. To facilitate drying, I turn my trays opposite of each other to allow maximum air flow over the meat (i.e. cross stack them).

As for storage, I place my jerky in large mason jars and store it out of the light. For long term storage you may want to vacuum seal some and place them in the freezer or on your pantry shelf in a tote so they are not exposed to light.

Cost Analysis

There are a ton of beef jerky maker's out there in the market place and wide variety of flavors. That is the great thing about making your own jerky is that you can tailor it to your own specific tastes. The primary recipe in this article is to show you how to make an 'original style' jerky that is mild in flavor but still tastes better than anything you can buy on your local supermarket shelves. As always, the great thing about making your own jerky is the amount of money you save doing so. For price comparison, you will see four of the most popular brands available at my local Walmart listed below.

Great Value Original Beef Jerky 3oz package $3.98 ($1.33 per ounce)

Homemade Original Style Beef Jerky 23oz ($0.55 per ounce)

Jack Links Original Beef Jerky 2.85oz package $3.98 ($1.40 per ounce)

Oberto Original Beef Jerky 2.85oz package $3.98 ($1.40 per ounce)

Sweet Baby Ray's Original Beef Jerky 3.25oz package $3.98 ($1.22 per ounce)

As you can see just reading the prices that I found on the Walmart website, our home made beef jerky is 59% cheaper than the Great Value brand original style jerky, and 62% cheaper than the Jack Links or Oberto brands of original style beef jerky. At it's minimum amount of savings, you get more than 50% jerky for the same price when you make it at home…..That's at least 50% off!

Addendum: My wife tells me after I weigh all my jerky to determine my yield that she and my grandson had been secretly eating some the jerky then rearranging it on the trays while it was cooling. They did not eat a lot, but I probably had an extra ounce or two more than I state in this article for my final yield, but we will leave it at $0.55 per ounce for home made jerky.

Curing Salts and Jerky

Curing salts are not necessary to make jerky, they are simply an insurance precaution if you will, and one that commercial manufacturer’s have to use. Most of my jerky never makes it past 3 weeks, but I do have curing salt (Prauge powder no. 1) in my pantry just for sausage making as well as Morton Tender Quick. If you are at all concerned about the safety of the jerky that you will be serving your family, or you wish to store it for more than 2 weeks, then you will need to use a curing salt. I will be honest I do not generally use a curing salt on whole meat jerky unless I am sharing the end product with friends and family who will be taking it home. Ground beef jerky for some reason tends to spoil faster if a cure is not used (about 2 weeks). So my recommendation is that you find a cure you like and use it whenever you are making jerky from and ground meat. There is nothing worse than having your jerky go bad or making your friends and family sick. The decision to use curing salts is yours to make, most of our ancestors survived even the harshest times eating dried meats without the use of curing salts, but for ground meat jerky, I recommend you use a curing salt.

The most common curing salts used in sausage and jerky making are Prauge powder no.1 and Morton Tender Quick. Tender Quick is probably the most readily available and most of you will be able to find it on one of the isles of your grocers shelves, and it is the cheapest of the two options. Prauge powder No. 1 is not only a cure, but a flavor and color enhancer that helps sausage maintain it's color. Prauge powder is the most expensive option, but is a better flavor and color enhancer which is more important in sausage making then in jerky making. If you have no desire to make your own sausage, then buy the Morton Tender Quick, it is cheaper and just as effective for jerky making. FYI, The batch of jerky that I made for this article did not include a curing salt, rather I listed it as optional ingredient as I was out of Morton Tender Quick at the time, and I wanted to save my prauge powder for sausage making. While we ate most of it, a few pieces that were not eaten right away became doggie treats as they began to mold at about 13 days.

Prague Powder No. 1

Prague powder is a curing salt made of sodium nitrite (6.25%) and sodium chloride (93.75%) which is specifically regulated by the FDA and USDA. Sometimes called 'pink curing salt' or 'tinted cure' it is a popular curing salt used in making sausage and jerky, It is a food stabilizer and flavor enhancer, and using prauge powder helps to prevent food poisoning by inhibiting bacterial growth as well as providing a distinct flavor and helps to prevent discoloration of sausages and jerky.

The FDA and USDA recommend that you use one ounce of Prague Powder #1 for each twenty-five pounds of meat (1oz per 25lbs) that you are going to make sausage or jerky with, or 1 level teaspoon of for 5 lbs of meat (1tsp per 5lbs). If I am going to make a batch for long term storage. When using prague powder in my jerky, I use 1/4 teaspoon per pound of raw meat. A 1lb bag or prauge powder sells for about $13.00 ($.81 per ounce) over the internet with free shipping.

Morton Tender Quick

Morton Tender Quick is a curing salt made of sodium nitrate (0.5%), and sodium nitrite (0.5%), sugar, and propylene glycol (water absorbent) that can be found in many local grocery stores. You can use tender quick as a direct replacement for the salt listed in your jerky recipe. Morton Salt's recommendation is to use 1 tablespoon of tender quick per each pound of raw meat in your recipe as a replacemenet for all other salts (iodized, kosher, or sea salt). Howard ReiterEau Claire County Master Food Preserver recommends using 2 ½ teaspoons of tender quick for each pound of raw meat used to make jerky. As for me, I have always gone with the recommendation of the Master Food Preserver and use 2 1/2 teaspoons of Morton Tender Quick per 1lb of my ground meat jerky with great results.

So for the recipe in this article you would omit the optional prauge powder and substitute 4 ½ teaspoons of Morton tender quick (3lbs meat x 2.5 = 7.5 teaspoons) for the sea salt. A 2.5lb bag of Morton Tender Quick is $5.31 ($02.6 per ounce), quite a bit cheaper than prauge powder, but it does take more as it is a direct replacement for the salt called for in the recipe.

Chef's Note: Do not confuse prauge powder with 'Pink Himalian' salt, the color may be similar, but they are not the same salts and cannot be used interchangeably.

Conclusion

Beef jerky is a great low carbohydrate protein packed snack food that is easy to carry, stores extremely well when made with a cure. Heck, jerky is one of the foods that helped America tame the wild west! Athlete, homesteader, prepper or just plain family man or woman, you need to know how to make your own jerky and have some on hand. Not just because it is great to eat, but it is a great survival food.

If you and your family like beef jerky and you are buying it at your local grocers, then you are definitely paying to much much for a product you can make much better and cheaper at home. When it comes to flavorings, make it as hot and spicy as you like, BBQ and Teriyaki flavors are popular, or go for something different like chili lime. That's the great thing about making your own jerky, you have total control of what goes into it and how it tastes. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and don't forget to send us a friend request on Facebook and Google+ so that you will not miss out on any of our new articles.