Find yourself wondering how beef jerky is made? Or maybe you’re chewing on some beef jerky with friends and the laughter and questions just keep rolling in. If you’re anything like me, when questions like this come up, I’m the first to pop out my phone for a Google search and find out the answer. So, I’m going to make this a little more interesting for you.
A Little History On Beef Jerky
Before we get down to how beef jerky is made, let’s take a look at its roots! Beef jerky has been around for thousands of years, and was always a delicious, and protein packed food item for our ancestors. According to people’s choice, there have been traces of beef jerky dating back to the ancient Egyptians (that’s almost 30 centuries ago).
However, the closest thing to beef jerky today as we know it came from the Andes mountains in Peru. There’s a lot more to know about beef jerky of course, but we’re going to save the rest of the beef jerky history for another time.
All that matters (for right now) is that you know beef jerky was (and still is) a great way to store meat for indigenous people. Since meat wouldn’t last long and couldn’t be stored in fridges or freezers a way to preserve meat was needed.
Back To The Making of Beef Jerky
Beef jerky can be made from a variety of meat. It can come from either game animals like deer, or non game animals. Top round, bottom round, flank and skirt steaks are the most lean meats for beef jerky. Once the meat for beef jerky is selected then it can be made.
For a proper beef jerky you’ll start with trimming all the excess fat from the meat. Once that's done then you can start slicing the meat to get a nice lean cut. Once you’ve got your lean sliced beef jerky, you can start marinating it to your liking. As you’ll see here at Holy Jerky we have some rare, and delicious flavors for you to choose from.
To marinade your lean cut beef jerky, you’ll use a mixture of spices and sauces to get the taste you’re looking forward to. As far as flavor goes, when it comes to jerky there’s no telling what you could whip up. Experiment, and have some fun with this step.
Now you’re ready to cook and dry your beef jerky. The secret to having a nice and tender batch of beef jerky that's going to last on the shelves is low heat, over a longer period of time. You can expect your jerky to cook for 6 hours, and in some cases even longer depending on how thick your cuts are. You want to cook your beef jerky between 160 and 190 degrees fahrenheit. So, you can see it will take some time. But you know, the best things in life always take time.
Finally, depending on what you’re preparing your beef jerky for you can either package it in an airtight container, or start eating it. You might have to start the process over again, if you aren’t a fan of what you created during the marinating stage. Which is ok! Or you could skip the hassle and try one of our whole muscle jerky flavors.
