I love jerky. A lot. Like, more than most people. Beef, pork, chicken, tuna, salmon, elk, turkey, buffalo: You name it, I’ve probably eaten it in jerky form. I wish I could make jerky all the time. I also wish I could eat jerky all the time, but I don’t think that my cardiologist would approve of that, even though since I am doing a pseudo keto diet it wouldn’t be a horrible thing. I made jerky this past weekend and I wanted to share my thoughts on the recipe I used. I’ve used this particular recipe before, but this time I made a double batch and it turned out even better than the first time.

This sack of smoked, dried meat could be yours!!

The Recipe

I suppose I should first talk about the recipe itself. The recipe that I used to make my latest batch of Jerky comes compliments of Susie Bulloch and her blog “Hey Grill, Hey!” (See her post, here) It is her Dr. Pepper Jalapeno recipe and it is amazing. It’s super easy to make, tastes great, and can be customized depending on your wants/needs. Want more heat? Add more jalapenos (or toss in a habanero or two). Want it a bit sweeter? Add in some sugar. Want it saltier (The hell is wrong with you?) Add in salt. Want to remove as much sugar as possible but still maintain the flavor? Use Diet Dr. Pepper. Want to be a complete failure? Use Dr. Pepper’s inferior bastard step-child Dr. Thunder. It’s completely up to you!

So, let’s get started on exactly what I did to make this jerky. Please note a full recipe which includes amounts of each item is listed at the bottom of this post.

The Ingredients

First of all, we need to gather all the components needed to turn a bunch of raw meat into something edible. To do so, we’ll need the following:

• Dr. Pepper (Get the real stuff, you lazy bum)
• Jalapenos
  • I used 6 for the double batch I made, but for a single batch, you’ll want two or more depending on how much of a bitch you are
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Black pepper
• Kosher salt
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Your valuable time

You might be asking yourself “Hey, the idiot forgot meat on his list” And you’d be correct. I did and for good reason. There are literally dozens of cuts of beef that you could use to make jerky. I prefer flank steak cut with the grain into thin strips. It looks the most like old-school jerky or kippered meat that you would’ve seen back in the day. The recipe from “Hey Grill, Hey” calls for Eye of Round sliced to about 1/4″ inch against the grain. Me being the asshole I am I went with a completely different cut of beef from a completely different part of the cow which has been processed in a completely different way. This is the magic of jerky. As long as you make sure to go with or against the grain, don’t under or over smoke your meat, and do not let it sit too long in the oven/dehydrator, you really can use whatever you want, to a degree. You wouldn’t want to use thinly sliced brisket because of how much fat that cut contains. Then again maybe you are a rebel and you don’t care that your jerky spoils in two days. If that’s you, then more power to you.

One of two flank steaks I used to make my most recent batch of jerky.

The Meat

Okay. We have all the shit we need. So now what. Well, if you are like me and you are using flank steak, or if you are processing your own cut of beef, then you need to put it in the freezer for a bit. Why the hell would we do this? I’ll tell you why. If you were to take a piece of flank steak fresh from the grocery store and try to cut it into somewhat even strips of beef you are going to get really upset. That meat will slide, flop, and fight you every chance it can. Tossing it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes will allow the meat to firm up, but not freeze. This will let you slice your beef without fear of it sliding and wiggling all over the place. Just trust me. Toss it in the freezer and when you are cutting it up you can thank me for how much easier your job has become.

Firm, but not frozen. Time to slice the shit out of it.

Now that we’ve got our meat out of the freezer and ready to cut, we need to figure out how thick we want to go. I recommend no more than 1/4″ in thickness, but no less than 1/8″. Any thicker, and it’ll take forever for your jerky to dry and any thinner and you’ll be eating crispy, burnt meat. Since I am using flank steak, I first cut the steak in half down the middle. While I like longer pieces of jerky, I don’t want to be dealing with what looks like spaghetti noodles of beef when trying to fit all of these little shits on my smoker. Once I have bisected the steak, I then go with the grain, in about 1/4″ thick slices until it is done. After I finished the first steak, I then did the same for the second steak until I had a giant pile of sliced beef on my cutting board.

One down, one to go!

Finished!

The Marinade, Part 1

I don’t have many pictures of this other than it in the pot on the stove, but it’s really easy to make. Slice your jalapenos, toss ’em into a pot with the Dr. Pepper, add in your Worcestershire sauce, your pepper and salt, and finally your garlic and onion powder. Give it a stir and bring it to a boil.

Marinade ready to go!

After coming to a boil, reduce the heat to medium or so, and let it simmer for 15 minutes. This will give the marinade time to develop its flavors and allow everything to come together to produce what I like to call “The good shit.”

Done!

Let the marinade cool completely, and I mean completely. This needs to be room temperature or cooler before you even think of adding this to your meat. If you do not let this cool and dump the hot liquid over your sliced meat you’ll end up par-cooking your meat, or potentially even fully cooking some pieces. This means you have royally screwed up. It also means you are a failure, your family hates you, and no one will ever want to be around you ever again. Don’t fuck it up. Just let it cool before you move on to the next step.

The Marinade, part 2

So you’ve got your beef sliced up, your marinade is cooled down, and you are ready to combine the two together. Well, guess what? You can’t. Yep, you need to taste your marinade. Is it soo salty? Does it need more pepper? Is it too spicy (you wuss)? It’s better to figure all this out now instead of AFTER you’ve smoked and dried all of your meat only to figure out it tastes like someone licking a salt cube in hell.

I separated my meat into two bags because I like making more garbage.

After you’ve tasted your marinade and you are happy, go ahead and pour it over your meat. Since I had two bags of meat, I split it in half between them. Once I had added all the marinade, I then removed as much air as I could from the bags, massaged the marinade into the meat, and then placed both bags into a pan. This makes sure that any leaks are contained and will not cause my fridge to become a hazardous waste area. “How long should I keep my meat in the fridge?” you might be wondering. Well, that is up to you. I’d say at an absolute minimum, 8-12 hours. Any less and your jerky won’t taste as good as it could. I was going to smoke this on Saturday but was not able to until Sunday, so mine got an extra 24 hours in the fridge for a total of 40 hours of marination time.

Have a good sleep meat. See you in a while!!

The Method

Jerky is one of those things that people like to argue about. It’s stupid, but some people will argue over whether it needs to be smoked the entire time to dry it out, or if it needs to be smoked at all. do you use a dehydrator? Should you use our oven? Would a campfire be the best bet? This is all stuff I’ve seen people argue about over on Reddit in the jerky sub (reddit.com/r/jerky if you would like to check it out). Me personally I like to combine a few methods. I like to smoke the meat for a few hours, 2-3 hours tops, and then toss the jerky into a 170-degree oven until it’s dry and at the texture I want. This will allow the meat to take on some smoke, but not get too smokey and get that weird creosote taste that some over-smoked meat can acquire. I bought a new toy specifically for making jerky and smoked cheese, and it performed amazingly (heh heh).

A-MAZE-N Products 12″ oval-shaped smoke tube and a bag of BBQers Delight Applewood pellets.

What you see here is from A-MAZE-N Products. It is their 12″ oval-shaped smoke tube. This thing is perfect for cold-smoking cheese, fish, and jerky, and it can also be used to add smoke to anything you are grilling, or even to supplement the smoke already being produced by your smoker (if you want to, that is). Just fill the tube, light the pellets, let them burn for like 10 minutes, and then blow the flame out. The pellets will smolder and burn for up to 4 hours on a single fill. Mine went for the full four hours and then I added a bit more after that and got another almost two hours. I wouldn’t have added more pellets, but I had to smoke my jerky in two batches since I did not have enough shelf space for all of the jerky at the same time. This thing is rad. Get one. You will not be disappointed (unless you hate smoked meat and cheese, which if you do, I feel bad for you).

After smoking for between two to three hours, I then placed my jerky into the oven and let it go until it was done. How long, you might ask? I don’t know. it is 100% up to you. If you like your jerky softer and more pliable, then you’ll want to dry it for a shorter period of time. Are you weird and like your jerky like a cracker? Then let it sit all day and/or night. It’s up to you. You’re the boss. I’m just some idiot writing about jerky on a website.

The Result

So this is where I regret not getting more pictures. After my jerky was at the desired texture I wanted, I pulled it out of the oven and threw it into a bag. I feel that this is necessary because the time in the bag will allow the jerky to steam a little bit. This will soften the meat fibers a little bit which will give it a better mouthfeel. You don’t need to do this, but why not make your jerky as good as it possibly can? After allowing your jerky to steam in the bag for an hour or so, and also to cool off a bit, you are free to eat. Kept in the bag on the counter your jerky should be safe to eat for a week or so. If kept in the fridge you should kick yourself in the face. Who the hell keeps jerky in the fridge??? If you want to make it more shelf-stable, you could look into adding some pink curing salt, but I’ve never done that so I have no idea how you’d go about incorporating that into your jerky.

Blurry, but only because of the awesome radiation it is putting off.

That’s it! Congratulations! You’ve made your own batch of beef jerky. Huzzah! Take it to work and make your co-workers incredibly jealous every time you open your bag of delicious, smoked and dried dead animal flesh.

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