Ground beef jerky recipe ?

misfish · August 25, 2021

Yup, got another new toy. Got the kit new for $15. Another auction steal . This unit is solidly built.

Looking for a good recipe . Ya been looking on line, but most use those packaged seasonings packs. Anyone have their own recipe ? Will be smoking the meat, not using a dehydrator. Also vacuum packing everything for later eats.

smitty55 · August 26, 2021

https://www.yummly.com/recipes/ground-beef-jerky?prm-v1=1

That looks like a good rig. I only tried it a couple of times. The dehydrator I bought came with the kit and a couple of mixes. I'm sure they must use some sort of binding agent that results in some proper jerky texture, which makes sense for ground but I didn't notice any on the few recipes I checked. Thing is when it comes out of the tube it's not very stiff so you basically can't handle it until its somewhat dried. So the smoker is a great idea but I'm thinking you may have to make your strips on a different surface and put those on the racks in the smoker. Your other option would be to dehydrate them like 80% until starting to stiffen up well and then just finish them in the smoker for the true flavour.

Off topic a tad but I've done lots of regular jerky in a dehydrator for decades now and I have always used liquid smoke for sure, even though I've had a smoker there was two brands that were good and one I didn't care for so much. Marinating for at least a day makes a big difference in overall flavour. I remember those good old days too when I could get nice thick full round steaks on sale at great prices and freeze them for my use any time of the year and a few big batches in the fall where I would do up a weeks worth for the four of us at deer camp each year. Great out ice fishing too.

Recipe wise, the one best addition you can improve any recipe with is the addition of lots of fresh garlic, not powdered. I grow my own. When you chew on a piece of that jerky the real garlic flavour stands out just right.

Cheers