SWTK - Your beef jerky recipes!

[Davey]

I'm going to do my first batch tonight.

I am just going to use the oven method - minimum temperature .. will put them in tonight and keep an eye on them tomorrow.

I made up a seat-of-the-pants marinade and have some sliced topside soaking in the fridge atm.

Fingers crossed!

[T-Rex]

we made our own biltong in south africa, shot them ourselves as well. we made droavorse (spelling?) that was soo fooken good though

[Skuzzer]

I am just going to use the oven method - minimum temperature .. will put them in tonight and keep an eye on them tomorrow.[/b]

I did mine in the oven too (90C is the lowest setting on mine), I had made it into strips which would've been max of 6mm thick in some sections and after 6-7 hours it was dry enough.
As it was my first go I only used 800g of meat, cooked it up last Friday and ate the last piece today. Time to do some more

[Davey]

ive got mine set on 75degrees C - tho it's fan forced. im going to leave it at that til bed time then turn it down to 50.. it smelled damn good after 2 hours marinating.

can't wait!!

[Viper]

I can just imagine the power meter going stupid using an oven

[Skuzzer]

yeah...I was wondering how much power I'd be using with the oven and how quickly I'd offset the cost of a dehydrator if I planned on making jerky often in the oven

How long does it take in the dehydrator?
Anyone know how much power the dehydrator would be using compared to the oven? (the oven is gonna be sucking heaps of power, set at 90C and left ajar for 6-7hours can't be economical)

[Scribble]

The dehydrator i use has a 550w heater in it. Takes about 8 hrs depending on how thick the cuts are. Not sure how much power in comparison to an oven it would use though.

How did your batch turn out Davey? does the oven method work well? do you guy's use the toothpick holding method?

[sathid]

Whats wrong with a box with a lightglobe in it?

[Davey]

oven method worked great - i used my fan forced oven on the minimal temp possible (turned it up until the light went on.. probly 40 degrees C ) left it for about 8 hours.

Came out great but i used waaaaaaaaaaay too much salt as WELL as soy so it was kinda nasty.

I've got something special planned for my next attempt

[Mikeymikemike]

i like satay, add a bit of ginger to it as well and chilli seeds, sugar will also give it a nice caramel layer

[Viper]

The dehydrator i use has a 550w heater in it. Takes about 8 hrs depending on how thick the cuts are. Not sure how much power in comparison to an oven it would use though.

How did your batch turn out Davey? does the oven method work well? do you guy's use the toothpick holding method?

8 hours? geez you must have like 3-4 trays ... I use a full 5 trays and its about 12-14 hours. that's nearly 3Kg of meat though.

[Scribble]

^^ yep about 3 - 4 tray's at a time. Not too heavily loaded, about 1.5kg.

[Davey]

i loaded up one tray (Roasting rack) with half a topside roast (im guessing 750g) and it took about 8 hours at minimum temp.

Still need to get more meat and other secret ingredients for my magical idea.

[Davey]

today's initial testing reveals that I may have stumbled upon Jerky nirvana...

I need me a dehydrator to produce some more of this wonderful recipe.

[Daise]

sharing is caring davey!!!

[Scribble]

What did your marinate consist of davey?

[BigTim]

You had jerky last night?

[Davey]

Haha

today's batch is good - but needs more fine tuning.

my concept - wasabi jerky.

I used kecap manis, light soy, lotsa wasabi, dash of wooster..

then while the meat is drying i baste on a wasabi/water solution to give it a good kick.

it's getting there but needs more refining

next time i will only use a little kecap manis - its a very sweet soy and the jerky comes out kinda sticky - i prefer mine dry.

Will use mainly light soy, with a dash of kecap manis and wooster, with a buttload of wasabi.. mmmm

[rc_sam]

Hmm, wasabi jerky sounds interesting. I do like wasabi alot.
Bought a Dehydrater today, so gonna start on Monday when i can get time to get some meat and ingredients.

[Davey]

I also bought a dehydrator today - got a batch of wasabi jerky (revised marinate) in the fridge marinating at the moment... will put it in first thing tomorrow morning.

I will also baste the strips with a wasabi/water mix at some stage during the drying process.

Last night's batch came out GREAT but there was only a very small hint of wasabi. needs more KICK.