GMMAT

I'm going to try to make jerky out of the next doe I take ......and I don't have a dehydrator. I can try it in our oven (convection, better?), but I may use my pig cooker .....if I can regulate the heat, low enough.

If I go wiht the oven......how much can I do at one time? How many times will it take for a 100# doe (I have no idea how much meat that is, for jerky, but I won't be using the inner TL's or the backstrpas for this.

Thanks.

mikeymjr23

I have done it in the oven quite often. I take the top rack out, clean it very well, and place aluminum foil on the bottom rack. If you can use 2 racks, clean them both off very well, but STILL USE aluminum foil on the bottom rack. Place the strips on the cleaned rack(s). Turn the oven on to the LOWEST setting you can on your oven. In my experience, anything over 140-150 F is going to cook the meat. I usually place a wooden spoon in the oven door and keep it open over night.

I generally start it before I go to bed, and it is usually done when I wake up.

mikeymjr23

Oh yea, I put the top rack back in. I said that I take it out and clean it, but obviously, I put it back in! haha

I could not even guess as to how much you can put on there. It will all depend on the size of the strips that you use for your jerky...the thickness will matter.

Big Guy01

That size of deer shoulg give you 20-25 # of bonless meat, you can do it in 2-3 batches.
Cut meat into long thin strips 1/4 " thich, and 1" wideand as long as the distance between the racks in your oven, soak in your prefered seasoning mix. Set the top rack as high as it will go, set bottom rack as low as it will go. Place a tray on the bottom rack to catch any drips,put a tooth pick ( the round kind) through a piece of meat near the end. slip the tooth pick up through the spaces in the top rack, this gives you a piece of meat hanging in the oven, between the racks.Repeat until oven is full, making sure no pieces touch each other, set oven to 125-150, crack open the door, check every few hours to see if its dry enough. To minimize clean up foil line the drip pan and discard foil after you are done.

Robert L E

I cut 1/4 inch strips, cure them with a commercial mix for a day, add my own extras like cherry preserves and cayenne pepper flakes, then lay the slices on the two racks for my oven with the racks in the upper two positions. I put them in so that they are touching but not overlapping. As they dry the slices will shrink and separate.

I set the oven at about 180, the "warm" setting on ours. It takes about eight hours to dry the jerky and I think one batch starts with nearly five pounds of the raw strips. I put foil under the heating element in the bottom of the electric oven. If I am around I may switch positions of the two racks as the upper one dries quickest. I pack the finished product in zip bags and store it in the freezer. We think that it has better consistency (more chewy) after freezing and being thawed.

We slice the meat with a rig like the attached picture. The height of the lip around the edge of the cutting board determines the thickness of the slices. One side of our board makes 3/16 slices and the other 1/4 inch.

minnesotadeer

I like using the oven best, though I have used my smoker. My wife got me one of those 3 tray oven jerky sets from Cabelas as a Xmas gift last year and it works slick. I forget how much I can get on there but you can get a lot on them and even buy extra ones to stack as high as your oven allows. I marinate the meat overnight and then pat dry and slide into the oven on the trays from breakfast to dinner, or around 10-12 hours. I leave the oven on at 170 and the door propped open ever so slighty with a wad of aluminum foil for good airflow. Your house will smell like a smokehouse but thankfully my wife likes the smell. In fact, she eats more of the jerky than I do probably since its a fairly health snack.

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0025137516402a&type=product&cm Cat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=jerky+ tray&sort=all&_D%3AhasJS=+&N=0&Nty =1&hasJS=true&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcom mon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1

OHbowhntr

Jeff,
Got to Wal-Mart and drop $40 and get a dehydrator, it's well worth the $$$$$. And if you grind the meat, and use a ground meat recipe, the jerky is just as tasty, and doesn't require a trip to the dentist to have teeth put back where they belong.

Robert L E

I just got done drying about eight pounds of jerky and have another eight on the oven racks. It takes at least 12 hours to dry it to a good chewy level at 180-190 deg. You can see that I cover each rack about 100% with the raw strips touching but not overlapping. The strips will shrink quite a bit and separate during the process.

I use a kit to cure 15 pound for chipolte jerky plus 1/3 of a peperoni jerky kit for the 20 pounds of raw meat that I started with. I also added a little salt, one quart of cherry preserves, some molasses, and a couple tablespoons of cayenne pepper flakes. My test piece, that I microwaved, tasted just right but after drying it seemed a bit mild. It tastes great but we like a bit more heat. My boy added another half pint of preserves, more salt, Worcestershire sauce and quite a bit of black pepper to the remaining 12 pounds of marinading meat.

In any case, to answer one of your questions, I can dry eight pounds of raw strips at once using just the two racks of our electric oven.


Edit- I cut 1/4" thick strips. If you go thinner, they will dry faster but you cannot do as much weight at once. The thicker seems to be a bit chewier to me and I like that.

jecole360

I have made jerky from my deer meat in a dehydrator before but it always seems to dry out and be more crispy than anything. Is that common? I would like to figure out a way to make it chewy like the stuff you can buy in the store (like jack links) but it seemed raw still if I didn't cook it long enough.

Robert L E

Technically jerky is just dried meat. It is "raw" but dry. I do not like eating raw meat so I use a commercial kit that contains a "cure". It is still "raw" but the bugs in it are dead from the "cure". Curing the meat is something like pickling it. Anything that is pickled is still raw but is preserved never the less.

If you look at my posts (above) you can see that I do add flavors and spices to make the jerky my own even though I use a jerky kit.

I have read that freezing the meat for six months also renders it safe to make jerky from. In reality, if you actually were to eat your venison raw without any preparation what so ever, it is unlikely that any harm would come to you.

Dried cooked meat is not really jerky. Jerky really should be raw. To keep the chewy texture you just remove it at the right time. My first batch came out perfect as far as moisture content and the second and third batches a bit too dry.

You may want to put your jerky in the oven for just a bit at 190 to 200 degees towards the end of drying AND use a bit more spice. Both will make it taste a bit less "raw". Heat at the end of the process does not seem to cook the meat like the same heat would at the beginning.

Bob