One of the best things about going to visit grandparents is getting lots of love and spoiling, and my Grandma Bessie was no exception. She wasn't a particularly huggy person; she showed her love with food. While my wild cousins who lived nearby her apparently favored store-bought cookies, the rest of us who lived an hour away loved Grandma's beef jerky.
As I've come to learn over the years, what she made us isn't truly considered jerky by most people. By definition, jerky is simply lean meat, cut into thin strips, salted, and dried to preserve. However, jerky aficionados insist that true jerky is dried meat that is marinated and seasoned with more than just salt and pepper.
Whatever. I'm happy to call my stuff dried beef if it keeps everyone else from eating it.
Grandma passed away when I was nineteen years old, and as the oldest granddaughter, and the only one interested in food preservation, I inherited her four-tray Excalibur dehydrator. Even though I was still in college, I started using it right away. And the first order of business was to figure out how to make Grandma's beef jerky.
I knew Grandma watched for sales on pre-sliced meat when we went shopping, and the cut she looked for was called breakfast steak. I don't know whether stores just don't do that cut anymore, or whether that's only the case here. I buy pre-sliced carne asada at WinCo, but only if it's sliced thinly enough, 3/16" thick or less. If meat is any thicker, it may not dry thoroughly and you'll end up with spoilage.
Grandma only used salt and pepper to season her jerky. She believed in keeping things simple, and especially for her grandchildren. She definitely didn't make jerky for her own children. I still can't figure out why my mom and her siblings didn't eat it; I still love it, but maybe it's just because it reminds me of Grandma.
Anyway, back to drying beef. Remove excess fat. Lay the beef slices on the dehydrator trays and salt both sides. I put pepper on just one side, but add pepper according to your tastes. Of course, you can also add other seasonings; I happen to find that salt and pepper work just fine for most people and are best suited for children. You may want to run a small test batch first to get an idea of how much salt and pepper to apply.
Set your dehydrator temperature to 155 degrees. If the temperature is set too high, case hardening may occur, whereby the outside layer dries too quickly and thoroughly and does not permit the moisture to escape adequately from the inside. (A little side note. Do I think the temperature has to be that high? No. Native Americans, and indeed people the world over, have been drying meat for millennia, long before electricity and Excalibur dehydrators. And I'm pretty sure they weren't doing their meat at 155 degrees. But they didn't live in a litigious society where anyone can be sued for anything at any time.)
It usually takes about a day to dry, but I live in a desert. Drying time will vary due to thickness of the meat, humidity, amount of salt used, and how full and efficient the dehydrator is.
I like the idea of vacuum-sealing the dried beef in bags, but I dry my beef completely, and it invariably pokes holes in the bags. So I usually resort to vacuum-sealing in canning jars. How long will it last? Well, beef jerky is kind of like chocolate around here, so we don't have extremely long term studies. However, we did misplace a few jars in our move and then somehow came across three-year old jerky. It tasted just fine and disappeared rather quickly. Even the pieces of fat tasted fine and had no trace of rancidity, which is what I would expect, as long as the vacuum seal isn't compromised.
28 january 2023
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