Beef Jerky

Last Festivus I received I received a jerky making kit from LJ's parents.  It has sat in our pantry every since.  It's not that I don't enjoy jerky (I enjoy anything with high amounts of salt.  I even owned a salt lick at one point in my life, which probably should be its own post) but it is that I usually don't have access to large quantities of meat.  Having this blog inspired me to finally break out the jerky gun and try it on a few pounds of store bought ground beef that I found on sale in a tube.

The kit makes the process pretty easy.  I just had to open a few packets and sprinkle them over the meat.  I then mixed everything together with my hands until the seasoning was well incorporated.

Once the meat was prepped I loaded the meat in to the gun, which can hold about half a pound at a time.

The gun makes the shaping process easy.  It comes with attachments for making tubes or wide strips of jerky.  I have made both and preferred the wide strips for eating.

I loaded the food dehydrator but found it could only hold about two pounds of beef.  Since my tube of beef was three pounds I cooked the remaining jerky in the oven on the lowest setting.

In the oven the process took about six hours and in the dehydrator it took about 18.  The kit came with three different flavor mixes; Teriyaki, Original, and Hot & Spicy.  I haven't been a fan of the Original as much as the other two.  I will also try creating my own seasoning mix once I use all the packets.