Jerky doesn’t have to be made in thin strips like bacon. As a practical matter, slabs and chunks are often easier to cut than thin strips. Time spent in cutting the meat can be a factor, especially if you are working on a large volume, such as an elk or a beef hindquarter, without the help of an electric meat slicer or other professional tools. As a rule, however, large chunks of meat will take lots of time to dry.
Smaller chunks, like stew meat, can also be made into jerky and are much easier to chew. These can be made from round steak or other supermarket cuts, or they can be made from the trimmings left from cutting larger cuts of meat into thin jerky strips.
In any case, be sure to try these recipes and methods. The directions are for using a dehydrator, but a kitchen oven will also work.
Small chunks of jerky are perfect for eating while you are driving a car or on the trail, and for people who have trouble biting off a chew from a strip of tough jerky. The trick here is to simply plop a nugget into your mouth and roll it around with your tongue until it is soft enough to chew. I like to make this jerky from a large chunk of meat, such as a bottom round beef roast, but it can also be made quite easily by using a steak about 1 inch thick. Round steak will do, if nicely trimmed of fat and sinew.
5 pounds lean red meat
1 cup salt
½ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
Dice the meat into 1-inch cubes, putting them into a nonmetallic tray or other suitable container. Mix the dry ingredients and sprinkle evenly over the meat. Toss the meat about to coat all sides. Cover and refrigerate for 48 hours, turning the meat a time or two each day. Rinse the meat, pat it dry, and arrange it on dehydrator trays. Dry at 120°F for 24 hours or longer, or until the meat is dry on the outside but still pliable inside. Store in an airtight container, preferably in the refrigerator.
These are similar to jerky nuggets, but the pieces can be more irregular. I make them from trimmings left from large chunks of meat, but very fresh supermarket stew meat (beef) can also be used. The pieces, however, should be rather uniform in thickness and should not be too large. If you use several sizes, it’s best to sort them and put them on separate trays. The larger chunks will require more drying. If you purchase supermarket stew meat, make sure it is quite fresh, and be prepared to trim off any fat and sinew.
I don’t normally use spices and seasonings in this jerky, partly because these can be added when making the stew. Of course, this jerky can also be used as a snack, in which case spices and flavorings may be added to taste.
stew-cut lean red meat
salt
black pepper
Put the meat in layers into a nonmetallic container, sprinkling each layer liberally with salt and sparsely with black pepper. Cover and put into the refrigerator for 24 hours. Rinse in clean water, pat dry with paper towels, and arrange on dehydrator racks. Dry at 120°F for a day or longer, until the meat is dry to your liking. For longer storage without refrigeration, the jerky should also be dry inside.
See chapter 12, page 87, for suitable recipes for cooking with this jerky.
At one time, country boys liked to keep a plug of tobacco in the bib pocket of their overalls. To take a chew, they simply sliced off a piece of tobacco from the end of the plug with the small blade of their pocketknife. The same technique can be used for jerky, and, boy, is it tasty. For meat, any good slab of low-fat red meat of suitable size will do. I sometimes use “breakfast steaks” as sold at my local supermarket. These are simply small steaks cut from eye of round. Larger plugs can be cut from other parts of the hind leg of beef. I like the thickness to be about 1 inch. Thinner slices will dry into plugs that are too thin. If properly prepared, these make a truly great jerky that seems to have more flavor than strips. At least, they come to flavor more quickly, owing to the freshly cut surfaces.
small steaks or cutlets of lean red meat
soy sauce
liquid smoke
salt
black pepper
Place the meat onto a nonmetallic tray or other suitable container. Sprinkle both sides with soy sauce, liquid smoke, salt, and black pepper to taste. Cover and keep in a cool place for about 8 hours, or perhaps overnight, turning the steaks from time to time. Pat the steaks dry and place on dehydrator trays for 12 hours at 140°F, or until done to your liking. Wrap each piece separately with paper towels and store in an airtight container until needed.
Note: These plugs can also be used for cooking some of the recipes in chapter 12, page 87.
Several people contributed to the section on dried beef in the book Foxfire 11. This account relies heavily on the method reported by Garnet Lovell, who used rather large chunks of meat from the hindquarter. “And you’d never cut it into strips,” he said, because they don’t “have the flavor.”
beef or other lean red meat in chunks of about
5 pounds each
plenty of salt
Sprinkle the chunks of meat on all sides with plenty of salt. Put the meat in a dry place for about 2 days, or until it stops sweating. (If the weather is humid, the process will take a week or so, in which case the practicality of using the method should be questioned.) After the meat has “taken the salt,” as they say in Foxfire country, cut a hole in the small end and slide in a sweet birch stick to use for hanging it. Hang it about 6 feet above a fireplace for about 4 weeks, or longer for larger pieces. When the meat dries, put it in cloth bags (clean flour sacks or pillowcases will do) and hang it in a dry place.
Another Foxfire contributor said to wrap the meat in cheesecloth, then hang it over the woodstove in the kitchen to dry.