Animal bones and stone tools indicate Neanderthals hunted away from home. In order to transport meat, Sorensen thinks they must have dried it. “I do not know of any evidence for [them] using salt,” he explains.

“Carrying dried meat from a mammoth home could now be done by seven to eight round trips [over] 14 to 16 days,” he added.

Neanderthals appeared on the planet as early as 600,000 years ago, and died out about 50,000 years ago.  So, jerky is perhaps the world’s oldest snack food.

But you gotta figure with an animal as big as a mammoth, you’re bound to have left overs.  You gotta do something with all that meat.

Ok, so we all know how good beef jerky is to eat as a snack, but have you ever thought about cooking with beef jerky?

Beef jerky is actually a pretty good ingredient for soups, particularly the really soft jerky, loaded with lots of flavor. 

Jerky in Ramen

I’d recommend using Jed’s Private Reserve Spicy Teriyaki when making ramen.  Just prepare the ramen according to the instructions on the package, but slip in about 5 or 6 pieces of jerky, and let it boil with the ramen.  The spicy flavors of the jerky will leach into the soup base, and give it a spicy burst.

Crumbled Jerky on Macaroni & Cheese

If you can chop up some jerky into fine pieces, sprinkled it on macaroni & cheese.  If you’re preparing “boxed macaroni & cheese” I suggest adding a handful of shredded cheese to the mixture, and then sprinkling the crumbled jerky.  Mix it thoroughly, and either let it sit for awhile, or bake it for a few minutes, or microwave it.  Either way, allow for the spicy jerky crumbles to spread it’s flavor into the macaroni & cheese.

I’d recommend using Jed’s Premium Black Pepper jerky for this.

Salad Topping

We’ve all heard of using bacon bits as a salad topping, but you can also use jerky.  Chop it up into bits, and allow it dry.  The nice thing about using jerky is that you have a wide variety of flavors to choose from.

Beef Jerky Omelettes

A soft, moist, thinly sliced jerky makes a great ingredient for omelettes.  I’d recommend any of Jed’s Private Reserve line, but use it sparingly.  Just lay about 2 to 3 pieces into a typical 3-egg omelette, add your favorite cheese, and I’d recommend tossing in some onions.  Jed’s Private Reserve jerky will add a fair amount of saltiness, smokiness, and some sweetness.

Roasted Jerky

What’s also good is to stick a piece of jerky on a long skewer, and hold it over an open fire.  Allow the meat to get hot, but don’t allow it to cook.  Hold it higher over the flame so that it heats up nicely, and gets some extra smokiness to it.

The heat unleashes the juices still trapped in the meat, and mixes into the spices.

I’d recommend using Jed’s Premium line of jerky, because it’s thicker sliced.

Making simple beef jerky is a four step process…

1. Selecting and slicing beef
2. Marinating
3. Seasoning
4. Dehydrating

Selecting and Slicing Beef

You can use any cut of beef you’d like, but typically most people use the Round, which comes from the hind quarters of the cow/steer.  You can use either the top round, or bottom round, it doesn’t really matter.  The Round is often used because it contains the least amount of fat.  And that’s a key towards making your own jerky, make sure you remove as much fat as you can.  Excess fat can spoil the flavor.

You can slice the meat any way you’d like.  Just consider that about 16oz of raw beef usually ends up at about 4oz of jerky.  If you like thin, crispy jerky, by all means slice it thin.  I happen to prefer thick strips, cut against the grain.  Cutting against the grain makes it easier to bite off chunks.

A good tip when slicing, is to freeze the meat partially, so that it slices easier.

Marinating

Marinating has two primary purposes, one is to provide the bulk of the flavor, and two is to kill pathogens.  All marinades should incorporate salt and/or vinegar to kill pathogens.  After that, the sky’s the limit.  The marinade can be as simple as salt water, or something complex as a bottle of name brand marinade from the grocery store.  Many people use apple cider vinegar because it helps soften the meat and adds a bit of tanginess.  If you like really salty jerky, go ahead and pour on the salt.  I’ve used the pickling juice from a jar of pepperoncinis one time, because it has both salt and vinegar, and adds a bit of spiciness.

How long to marinate is a personal preference.  You’ll have to experiment with a few batches before you develop what you think is the perfect process.  You should marinate for at least four hours, up to as long as 24 hours.

I prefer to dump the meat and marinade into a plastic ziploc bag.  You can store it in a refrigerator, but I’ve successfuly marinated meat keeping it on a kitchen counter at room temperature for 24 hours.

Using a vacuum to marinate helps draw the flavors deep into meat in shorter time.  You can find ziploc bags at the grocery store that come with a handpump to create a vacuum.  If you want to spend some money, get a vacuum tumbler.

Seasoning

After marinating has finished, sprinkle your favorite seasoning.  But use seasoning sparingly.  Most of your flavor is going to come from the marinade.  The seasoning is only to add a little punch.  A popular seasoning blend is to take some black pepper and garlic powder.  There are some steak seasoning blends that work really well on steaks, but often don’t work to well on jerky. Cayenne pepper is another favorite jerky seasoning.  Whatever hits your fancy, give it try.  Just use it sparingly.

Dehydrating

Jerky is never cooked, rather it’s dehydrated.  Any heat used in dehydrating jerky is merely to help remove water from the meat. Dehydration can be done in one of three ways…

1. Oven, BBQ, Smoker
2. Food dehydrator
3. Air dried

If using an oven, BBQ, or smoker, make sure the heat does not exceed 160 degrees F.  Any higher than that, and you’ll risk cooking the meat.  You do not want the meat to cook, or else it end up tasting similar to pot roast.

Food dehydrators are popular because you can keep them in the kitchen, and regulate the heat, and they’re not that expensive.

Air drying works very well, particularly if you can do it under the full sun.  Just make sure you keep the flies away.  If you’re concerned about food poisoning, the marinating process should protect against that.  Biltong, a South African version of jerky, is dehydrated exclusively in air, but usually in a dark cool area, and relies on salting, with a vinegar dunk, to kill pathogens.

The amount of time to dehydrate varies on how thick the pieces of meat are.  I’d suggest at least four hours.  Check the meat by chewing on a piece.  If it tears off with some ease, it’s probably done.  You’ll know if it’s still somewhat raw by how chewy it is.  It should tear apart with your fingers fairly easily. 

I use my BBQ grill to dehydrate.  I lay the pieces on the upper rack, and turn on only one of the burners.  I set the flame down to it lowest level, and then I keep the BBQ lid wide open to let all the heat escape.  My BBQ is placed under direct sunlight.  I usually slice the meat into thick strips, and it usually takes about 6-8 hours to dehydrate.  In a way, I’m utilizing a combination of air drying, and low heat.

Summary

Jerky is actually very easy to make.  The beauty of it is that it allows for a lot of artistic expression, since each of the four basic steps provides for a lot of variation.  It’ll take several attempts before you find that perfect recipe and process, so be creative.

Of course if you lose patience, you can always rely on ol’ Jed, he still makes some good jerky…

http://www.jedsjerky.com/

If you live in a household where other family members, or roommates, have a love for jerky, what do you have to do to protect it from getting commandeered?

Jerky is quickly becoming the favorite snack among Americans, so what will you need to do to protect your stash of dried meat?

My next door neighbor has a gun cabinet, with a lock, which he uses to store more than just his guns.  He keeps his best liquor in there, along with all of his favorite snacks, including jerky.  He has four kids living in the house, along with his wife.  Any yummy treats sitting in a kitchen cabinet or refrigerator won’t last long there.

Years ago, when I worked in an office, you couldn’t keep your lunch in the office refrigerator. Co-workers with mid-morning hunger pains would open the refrigerator, and eat your own lunch!  Forget about keeping snacks there.

Instead, at my office cubicle, I had a locking cabinet where I kept my jerky, sodas, and other snacks.  I’d keep it locked when I left, because I couldn’t keep an open bag of jerky laying on my desk, without someone walking by and sneaking a piece out.

On camping trips, I’d go out with a bunch of buddies to the mountains, and we’d bring along food, drinks, and snacks, and I’d always haul up a couple bags of jerky.  I don’t mind sharing it with my friends, but I at least want to be able to enjoy one or two pieces.  So, to ensure that I always some pieces of jerky available to me, I’d keep a “secret bag” of jerky in my pack of clothes.  I kept the pack in my tent.  Then later on in the evening, while we’re all gathered around the campfire, I’d retrieve the “secret bag” from my tent, and bring it back to the campfire.

If you live in a apartment that you share with roommates, and your roommates have no respect, where can you hide your bags of jerky? Try wrapping a pair of dirty underwear around the bags.  Or, make sure you room up with vegetarians.

Teriyaki is perhaps one of the most popular flavors in beef jerky, and yet it’s so varied from one brand to another.

So what makes really good teriyaki beef jerky?

There’s four primary ingredients in Teriyaki, each providing a unique quality to the overall taste…

• Sweet – teriyaki should have a thick sweetness
• Soy Sauce – you should be able to taste enough of it to notice.
• Sake or Mirin Wine – provides a tangy quality, similar to vinegar
• Ginger – gives teriyaki a pungent contrast to the sweet

Most mass-market brands throw in the first two, sweet and soy sauce, and then call it teriyaki.  In fact, some brands are worse than that, adding in the sugar, but relying on hydrolyzed soy protein for the soy sauce.

If you’ve ever had teriyaki beef or chicken at a japanese restaurant, you should be able to taste the same kind of sauce in teriyaki beef jerky.

I’ve tried all of the mass-market brands of teriyaki beef jerky and none of them provided that true japanese restaurant style teriyaki.  Good teriyaki beef jerky is something largely relegated to the small gourmet brands.

But I have found a few brands that did a good job of replacing some ingredients with others.  Some replace the ginger with onion, and still manage to create that pungent contrast quite well.  Others use plain grape-based wine instead of rice wine to give it that tangy punch. 

I’ve even found a brand that used a vinegar similar to that from a can of pickled red cabbage.  It didn’t quite taste like traditional teriyaki sauce, it had a totally different flavor, but still had all the components of good teriyaki sauce.

Teriyaki is such a popular beef jerky flavor largely due to America’s love affair with sweet & salty snacks, and because Japanese cuisine has an exotic appeal to American snackers.  Good teriyaki sauce should have an even balance between sweet and salty; neither should overpower the other.

If you found this blog post looking for some good teriyaki beef jerky, you can start with Jedidiah’s Teriyaki Beef Jerky, I gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Best Beef Jerky…

http://www.jedsjerky.com/

Now by nature I have always been the ‘better safe than sorry’ type of guy.

“What if” games play in my head.  And why not?  Is it better to be safe than sorry?  I think most people think this way.  If you live in an earthquake prone area, well you would be good to have an earthquake kit.  The same idea if you live in hurricane prone areas, or tornados areas, or anywhere in fact.  Now as far what belongs in the kit, please go to more appropriate disaster preparedness websites or government agencies for the best information.  As far as food stuff, well you guessed, what about Jerky?  Wow, what a great idea!  But first let’s compare other food items that might not be the best to be in your survival kit.  Well anything perishable would be a problem for long term storage or items requiring say, refrigeration.  But is not beef jerky perishable?  Well by term it is semi-perishable, which means that it does not last forever, it does have a shelf life.  But let’s examine the Term “semi-perishable” or let’s look a the word “semi”.

Perhaps a dictionary would be handy about now, but let’s wing it!  Usual shelf life of most treated meat like beef jerky have a shelf life of or usually a year after production, there are exceptions, this is only a rule of thumb and not every company cures meat the same way, most have different ways of production so every company could be different.  But most manufactures have an expire code on each package, usually imbedded in the label or package or in the back of the package, be sure to check the dates always to make sure you are getting the freshest jerky!  So as one part of your disaster preparedness kit as regards to food stuff consider the advantages that beef jerky offer, besides being compact the food has a longer than average food storage capacity.

My hope is we never have to use an emergency kit, but if we have a need remember, it’s better to be prepared, than not.

Please take care,

Jerky Jed.

By Jerky Jed

Everyone likes a good night’s sleep. But in the early morning hours of Sunday morning Jerky Jed could not sleep. The phone rings, being so curious as to who was calling at such a time. The other person on the line says he Billy from Iraq, the back ground noise of a long distance connection was evident. Billy says he’s in the Army and would like to have some beef jerky because he wants something from the United States that reminds him of home.

Now I have traveled abroad, but never to anything too close to Iraq. My guess is that in any town in the Middle East, convience stores are not too common. Maybe we should export American Laundries to China, and C-stores to the Middle East? Anyway back to my story about Billy. Billy was a kind, younger sounding person serving our country with his friends. We salute Billy’s efforts here at Jed’s Jerky.com and appreciate his interest in Jerky and Gourmet Snacks. If we can provide some uniquely American flavors to our fighting men and women we are doing our job, because without them the world would be a different place, a darker place in my view. So thank you for all that have served and are now serving! And thank you for the families that have loved ones that are serving! We hope Billy the best and a safe return home and all who serve with Billy! Perhaps we can get a blog entry from Billy soon, we will be sure to post for all, because we should never forget and always appreciate the folks in the United States Armed forces. Thank you for reading this blog, please feel free to post, as I would really like to hear your thoughts.

Jerky Jed

Pictured here, age 3.

You might ask yourself, what is brisket beef jerky and how is it different from regular jerky. That’s a good question. Lets break it down, first depends on the company and the style would be my first answer. So in very general terms most beef jerky is made of muscle. Why, well speaking from my position and my opinion cost is the primary point. Plus most generally speaking muscle has very little fat content. Now you have different grades of meat that the USDA has made for identify the different cuts.

Hence the difference between muscle and brisket of beef. Now you might know that Jedidiah’s Jerky makes a wonderful brisket of beef, beef jerky. They call it the Private Reserve, it comes in 4 flavors. Original, Teriyaki, Sweet Spicy, and hot and Spicy. All made of brisket of beef. Different from muscle, brisket is a softer more tender cut of beef. So prepare yourself for a sweet tender jerky experience! Now just today, I tried a typical piece of Beef Jerky, and let me tell you this was one leather chewing experience. Most people trying the Private Reserve always remark about the soft, tenderness of the brisket. So if you are looking for a traditional tough chewing piece of Jerky, the Jedidiah’s Private Reserve Series may not be for you. But on the other hand, a tender, moist jerky is what you crave well look no further!

The next flavor you might ask about is Jedidiah’s Premium Beef Jerky, now this is more traditional and a deeper smoked flavor, very different from the Private Reserve style of Jerky. Not a brisket, but still a nice softer piece of Beef Jerky heaven. The flavor vary from B-B-Que, my personal favorites to Honey Glazed, and the newest in my previous blog entry, the Habanero Chipotle Premium Beef Jerky, please read for a more complete review. So try either the Brisket of Beef Private Reserve or the more traditional flavors of the Jedidiah’s Premium Jerky, you’ll be glad you did!

Jed