Where to buy good beef jerky?

[dholly]

Me and the kids love jerky, but you can go broke buying 4oz. packets in the grocery store for teenagers. I've also concluded that venison jerky is just too time consuming to make, and what I do make is gone so darn quick well, lets just say, I know how Mom fees after taking a couple of hours to prepare dinner and seeing it disappear in 5 minutes! So I'm looking to find a source of good, tasty peppered beef jerky bulk (lbs.) at a reasonable price. What say you?

 

[Golfgar4]

My son is always getting BIG bulk bags of beef jerky from his in-laws. He says it's the best jerky he's ever had. I'm not a jerky connoisseur, so I couldn't say one or the other. It is good, but I wouldn't know how to compare it to any other brand.

His in-laws live just outside of Allentown, PA. I'll see if I can find out for you where they get it.

 

[bczoom]

dholly,

Are you in the Rochester NY area? There's a place on 104 in Webster (eastern suburb) that makes incredible stuff. I just checked the freezer to get his name off the package but I already ate the last package. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
If someone here can think of whom I'm referring to, please let us know. He does a lot of deer processing and is on 104 between 5 Mile Line and Ontario (around the Deere dealer as a reference point). I e-mailed my BIL to get his name but that may take awhile.

Brian

 

[dholly]

Thank you both kindly. And Brian - I do get thru Webster a few times each year and know the area somewhat, so I could follow up if you find a name.

 

[twinstackram]

Make your own,I went to wal-mart bought the kit to do it myself,you get spices in the kit ,and you can buy the spices separately by the box,get some ground chuck or something with a low fat content,mix in your spices and put it in the gun from the kit and oh yes you'll need to buy a dehydrator about $20 or 25 bucks,take your gun filled with the meat that you spiced up and fill your dehydrator and in about 3 or 4 hours you have beef jerky,for pennies on the dollar,I can't make it fats enough,with the ground chuck it makes it very tender,try it I think that you will be surpized how good it is.

 

[dholly]

I should have distingushed between the 'chopped' and 'whole muscle' jerky, sorry. We initially made our venison jerky as you mentioned, and I do still have all the equipment, but over the years we have come to prefer the larger whole muscle jerky. That is a much longer process. One of my boys even said that fighting an occasional piece of tough jerky is part of the fun! Wonder if he'll feel the same with a set of 55 or 60y.o. chompers?

 

[Chuck52]

Making jerky is about all I've used my dehydrator for. I don't consider making it all that time consuming. If you're buying store-bought jerky, the cost of good meat to make jerky would be a bargain. I got some good lean brisket for the last batch I made. I sliced it with the grain just because I figure jerky is supposed to be tough. I use a mixture of stuff including various spices and either soy or terriyaki sauce, put that in a baggie with the meat and let it marinate over night. Then it goes in the dehydrator on the highest heat setting for maybe 5-6 hours. I try to do about 3 poiunds of meat at a time, and that makes a fair bunch of jerky....never weighed it after drying. I think I'm just too darn cheap to buy much jerky, and my own tastes better to me that any I've bought anyway. My 4 and 5 year old grandkids love it, but the last batch was almost too tough for the 4 year old. There were several pieces of gummy half-chewed jerky in his wake because he kept thinking the next piece would be easier to chew.

Chuck

 

[dholly]

Chuck - If I can't find any good sources, I'll probably buy a small electric slicer and start doing my own again since I do have the dehydrator. I never seemed to be able to slice thin pieces large enough by hand. Got any secret recipes you care to share?

 

[DUMBDOG]

If we shared our secret recipes, they not longer would be secret, would they? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Chuck52]

My recipe seems to wander around a bit, but it always includes onion and garlic powders, black pepper, either red pepper or some hot sauce, worcestershire sauce, and soy or terriyaki sauce. If I use soy, I also use some brown sugar. I don't like it too sweet, but just enough to balance the salt. I use about 1/2 tsp salt per pound, the rest coming from the soy or terriyaki. Lately I've also thrown in some ground ginger. All the amounts are fairly flexible, maybe 1-2 tsp of each of the dry ingredients/pound except for the hot stuff which is to individual taste. I find that if I use just enough soy or terriyaki to fully moisten the meat without making a puddle, it seems to come out about right. This means that the spices don't end up in extra marinade that you throw away when you take the meat out. I put it in a baggie or some sealable bowl and let it sit in the frig overnight. I usually shake it up whenever I happen to be in the frig for a beer or something. Lots of opportunities for shaking.

If you partially freeze the meat before slicing it is easier to get good uniform slices, though the weird shaped pieces let you know it's real jerky! Of course it also helps if the meat is of uniform shape, but that doesn't happen often. The best I have had was the above mentioned brisket, which was on sale, but was very lean and didn't even have much of the internal fat layer you often get in brisket. However, like I said, if you look at the price per pound of jerky, you can afford a pretty nice cut of beef to use to make your own.

Chuck