I tried my hand at making beef jerky yesterday.

Harbor Freight had a sale on food dehydrators - $20. At that price can't hardly go wrong.

I marinated some thin meat my wife got at WalMart. I put water, vinegar, chili powder, cayenne, salt, black pepper, soy sauce, garlic powder, omion powder, and smoke flavoring in the marinade, along with a few drops of habenero Tabasco sauce.

I cut the meat into inch or inch and a half wide strips and set it in the marinade in a vacuum sealing container, and then vacuumed it and put in the fridge for a couple hours.

The directions that came with the food dehydrator said to cook the meat to kill bacteria before dehydrating it. I may have cooked it a little more than necessary in the microwave. Dehydrator overnight.

Even so, it came out pretty decent for a first try.

Interesting.
I love beef jerky and always order the same stuff on a regular basis. I hadn't considered making my own and have never heard of a food dehydrator! If they're that cheap i can see it's worth a try.
You say it was pretty decent first try...any more tries? have you carried on making it?

I made a number of batches. It came out pretty good.

I have been out of town a lot lately so have not had much time for this kind of thing.

I am going to try a dry rub next time.

Just don't over dry it. It comes out crunchy. It's not bad, but it is not chewy.

I can't recommend the HF dehydrator though. Rather than summarize what happened, I will just point you to my account of it on my blog.

http://ilbob.blogspot.com/2010/09/2...r-update-3.html

My new dehydrator.

http://ilbob.blogspot.com/2010/11/n...dehydrator.html

Home made beef jerky. Sounds great, I think I will give it a go. Do you have various recipes that you can share? How long in the dehydrator? What is the net carbs after the marinades?

My son always makes it in the oven turned down real low and lets it lay across the racks all night long. When he likes the consistancy, it's done, not before morning though. Oh, it's so good. No sugar added. Just all the stuff you mentioned. You can try various flavors. So much better than store bought.

Donna

Oh, he leaves the oven door opened, also, so the temp can be at it's lowest. So put it on the lowest setting, ours is 170 degrees, then he cracks the door open, too. Hope this helps.

There are some in the blog posts I referenced.

Mine end up being < 1 gram per ounce of jerky.

I like mine kind of spicy though. Others may not like that.

You can google for other recipes.

thanks for the direction