Thursday, December 29, 2011

How to Use a Jerky Gun to Make Homemade Beef Jerky

!±8± How to Use a Jerky Gun to Make Homemade Beef Jerky

Beef jerky, pemmican or dried meat is a great, nutritious, portable snack that is favorite treat, whether at school, on the go, camping, hiking or doing just about anything! It consists of a few simple ingredients including meats like beef, chicken or turkey and seasoning mixtures that include salt, peppers, spices, marinades and other flavoring liquids. Further, it is easily made with a food dehydrator which drys the meat via the dehydrator's heat and air flow.

Jerky can be made from many different meats. Common meats that are dehydrated include beef cuts, like flank or round steak, and pork, chicken and turkey. When making dried meat in a dehydrator, it is important to use leaner cuts of meat. Too much meat fat can prolong the drying process and cause it to become rancid during storage.

A jerky gun appliance can make jerky making very easy. The gun is a kitchen appliance used to extrude raw ground meat into thin flat strips or round sticks that are suitable for dehydrating into pemmican. These appliances are made to hold ground meat. Most of the meat put into a jerky gun is ground beef like ground round or lean or extra lean ground beef. Ground pork, chicken or turkey can also be used.

Follow these easy steps to make dried meat with a jerky gun and a food dehydrator:

Mix one prepackaged spice seasoning mix per one pound of ground meat. Or alternatively use your own mixture of salt, pepper and other spices to season to your tastes. Thoroughly mix the ground meat and spices together. Fill the gun's tube with the ground meat. Jerky guns typically hold between one half to one and a half pounds of meat. Press the gun's handle or trigger to extrude the meat onto the food dehydrator's drying trays. These appliances typically have a number of different sized nozzles that can extrude meat strips with varying thickness. Dehydrate the meat between 145 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Test the dried meat to see if it is done. The dried meat should be flexible and not brittle. Jerky is done when a test piece cracks on the edges but does not break when it is bent.


How to Use a Jerky Gun to Make Homemade Beef Jerky

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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Beef Jerky Recipes - Everything You Need to Know About Beef Jerky

!±8± Beef Jerky Recipes - Everything You Need to Know About Beef Jerky

Snack food fads come and go, but beef jerky has been something people have been making for thousands of years before commercialism even existed! A tried and true method of preparing meat, beef jerky has evolved into a one of America's most favorite snack foods, with the dried meat snack industry raking in an estimated 0 million per year.

Beef jerky is a popular snack for many reasons.

o It's healthy. Beef jerky is low in fat and cholesterol.

o Protein! Beef jerky is very high in protein, which can translate to an energy-filled snack.

o Low or no Carb! With many people on the craze of a low-carb diet, jerky is a perfectly filling snack option.

o It's convenient! Beef jerky is the type of snack that is small, so it can be easily carried with you anywhere.

o It lasts! If you buy in bulk and stash it somewhere, you'll have an endless supply of a good snack for months.

o Variety! There are so many cuts and flavors of jerky that you can always try something new. There is regular jerky, there are sticks, there are nuggets and there is even chew.

In fact, beef jerky really is only one kind of jerky. Jerky in general is any type of dried meat. Turkey comes in second to beef, while other meats like pork and many game animals like deer, buffalo and elk also make delicious jerky snacks. There are also more exotic types of jerky: alligator, crocodile, ostrich, trout, salmon and even tofu.

There are many popular brands of jerky that you can purchase online or in your favorite store. Some of the most recognized brand of jerky are Slim Jim (which are best known for their spicy meat sticks, but do also have jerky), Oberto and Pemmican. There are also many gourmet beef jerky brands, such as Gary West. And, there are many regional favorites that also have grown due to the Internet.

Beef jerky can come in so many flavors: pepper, garlic, teriyaki, barbeque, honey barbeque and more. It can be mild and it can be hot. There are also many kinds of exotic flavors available if you look hard enough. Another way you can get some creative tasting jerky is by making it yourself. That's right. Beef jerky is something that anyone can make.

Beef jerky can also become a pastime for folks who like to experiment and eat jerky. There are kits available to make jerky at home, dehydrators to make in, lots of supplies and rubs and marinades to purchase and so much more. You can simply make it in your oven, too. There are many recipes available to make your own marinades and rubs. Aside from the recipes we offer here, there are other sites that offer recipes, as well as cookbooks dedicated to jerky.


Beef Jerky Recipes - Everything You Need to Know About Beef Jerky

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Understanding Food Safety of Home Made Jerky

!±8± Understanding Food Safety of Home Made Jerky

Beef jerky is a snack food known at least since ancient Egyptian times. In early times, humans made beef jerky from animal meat that was too big to eat all at once, such as bear, buffalo, or even whales. North American Indians mixed ground dried meat with dried fruit or suet to make "pemmican". "Biltong" is actually a dried meat made in many African countries. Our word "jerky" came from the Spanish word "charque."

Beef jerky is a product that is a nutrient-dense meat that has been made lightweight removing moisture by drying. A pound of meat or poultry weighs about four ounces after being made into jerky (most manufacturers will add sugar, spices and other items to help to offset this). Due to the fact that moisture is removed down to "safe levels", the product is considered shelf stable. It can be stored without any refrigeration -- making it a handy food for backpackers and others who don't have access to refrigerators.

With commercially manufactured beef jerky products, the process is monitored in federally inspected plants by inspectors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Products may be cured or uncured, dried, and may be smoked or un-smoked, air or oven dried. At commercial plants, both internal meat temperatures and water activity percentages (among other things) are continuously monitored and validated to regulate processes and assure safe quality products to consumers.

When raw meat or poultry is dehydrated at home, usually in a slightly opened warm oven or a food dehydrator, you should understand that it is possible to make beef jerky which will be stored on the shelf, but that any pathogenic bacteria are likely to survive the dry heat of a warm oven and especially the 130 to 140 °F of a typical inexpensive food dehydrator. This means, if you bought meat that was contaminated or somehow had something within your process that was contaminated that you introduced to the meat, you would have a high probability that your finished product would be contaminated upon completion of the dehydrating process. If meat is not contaminated and you proceed as typical, you won't have any issues.

Illnesses due to Salmonella and E. coli from homemade beef jerky continue to raise questions about the safety of traditional drying methods for making venison and beef jerky. The USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline's current recommendation for making beef jerky safely is to heat meat to 160 °F and poultry to 165 °F before starting the dehydrating process. This step assures that any bacteria present will be destroyed by wet heat. Most dehydrator instructions do not include this step, and a dehydrator will not reach temperatures high enough to heat meat to 160 °F. After heating, maintain a constant dehydrator temperature of 130 to 140 °F during the drying process is important because the process must be fast enough to dry food before it spoils, and it must remove enough water that microorganisms are unable to grow.

The risk in dehydrating meat and poultry without first cooking it to a safe temperature is that the dehydrator will not heat the meat to 160 °F and poultry to 165 °F -- temperatures at which bacteria are destroyed -- before it dries. After drying, bacteria become much more heat resistant. Within a dehydrator or low-temperature oven, evaporating moisture absorbs most of the heat. Thus, the meat itself does not begin to rise in temperature until most of the moisture has evaporated. Therefore, when the dried meat temperature finally begins to rise, the bacteria have become more heat resistant and are more likely to survive. If these surviving bacteria are pathogenic, they can cause food borne illness to those consuming the beef jerky. If you must make beef jerky at home, here are some recommendations directly from the USDA for helping to insure your protection:

1) Always wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before and after working with meat products.

2) Use clean equipment and utensils.

3) Keep meat and poultry at 40 °F or slightly below; use or freeze ground beef and poultry within 2 days; whole red meats, within 3 to 5 days.

4) Defrost frozen meat in the refrigerator, not on the kitchen counter.

5) Marinate meat in the refrigerator. Don't re-use marinades. Using a brine will help to keep the meat moist while attempting to reach the 160 °F or 165 °F as described below.

6) Steam or roast meat to 160 °F and poultry to 165 °F as measured with a food thermometer before dehydrating it.

7) Dry meats in a food dehydrator that has an adjustable temperature dial and will maintain a temperature of at least 130 to 140 °F throughout the drying process.

There are other special considerations when making homemade beef jerky from venison or other wild game that are also worth noting. Wild game meat is not regulated or reviewed by the USDA prior to processing. Venison can also, in some instances, be heavily contaminated with fecal bacteria, as directly related to the degree of varying with the hunter's skill, wound location, and other factors. While fresh beef is usually rapidly chilled, deer carcasses are typically held at ambient temperatures (whatever the temperature is outside at the time of the kill), potentially allowing bacteria multiplication. Reaching internal meat temperatures of 160 °F with wild game meat is even more important as the risk of contamination is definitely higher.

So what type of "insurance" do you require for your home made beef jerky adventures? It really is up to you.


Understanding Food Safety of Home Made Jerky

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Pemmican Premium Cut Peppered Jerky, 3.25-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)

!±8± Pemmican Premium Cut Peppered Jerky, 3.25-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)

Brand : Pemmican | Rate : | Price : $29.94
Post Date : Sep 03, 2011 12:42:54 | Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Pemmican offers a complete line of beef jerky products that includes Premium Cut Beef Jerky, Steak Tips, and Tender Style Beef Jerky. Pemmican products are premium meat snacks that are low in fat and high in protein.

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