Jerky help
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I have made a ton of jerky in the past with great results using non Waltons seasoning. Since I have had excellent results with everything else from Walton’s, I decided to try their jerky seasoning. I went with the Walton’s Bold seasoning. I have never marinated jerky before. I always let it cure for 24 hours in a bag with no water, then smoke it. For Walton’s I added water to the bag till it just covered the meat for 24 hours. It appeared that all I accomplished was to wash all the seasoning off the jerky. When I drained the water, most of the seasoning was in the sink. I went ahead and smoked the jerky and everything came out fine except the taste. There is very little flavor from the seasoning. Most of it taste like dried meat. Do I need to let it marinate in water? Seems it would be better to skip the water, or at least add very little and rotate the bag every so often.
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johnsbrewhouse Team Blue Regular Contributors Traeger Power User Sous Vide Canning Washington Gardening Veteranreplied to Grimpuppy on last edited by
Grimpuppy Way to much water, only takes like 8 ozs. of water for 5 lbs of meat. You coat the meat with the cure first, put it in the bag, then put in the water. Go to https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/178/how-to-make-homemade-jerky-recipe?_=1628481680007. You washed out the seasoning. With the little bit of water, there won’t be much liquid after 24 hours usually.
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I miss typed that. It was 12 hours in the fridge. I do my non marinade for 24 hours. I put it in the fridge about 10:00 last night and got it out at 10:00 this morning. I followed the how to make recipe.
“Add just enough water to cover the meat, and help it marinate. Hold the jerky meat strips in the refrigerator overnight or about 12 hours.”
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8 oz didn’t come close to covering the meat. I used 2 eight ounce bottles of water and even then, it wasn’t completely covered.
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johnsbrewhouse Team Blue Regular Contributors Traeger Power User Sous Vide Canning Washington Gardening Veteranreplied to Grimpuppy on last edited by johnsbrewhouse
Grimpuppy Definitely don’t need all that water. If you look at the short recipe they tell you different 40 ounces of water for 25 pounds of meat. if you use the 8 ounces in 5 lbs. it will come out a whole lot better. That is how I do it. There is no real need to cover the meat entirely with water if you coat the meat first. I generally take and mix my seasoning and cure together and put it in a shaker bottle, lay out my meat, coat one side, flip it coat the other side and then bag it, throw any left over seasoning from the bottle in and then add the water. Then I purge the air from the bag, toss it around a bit and put it in the fridge overnight. Comes out great. The water just helps the salt to absorb into the meat.
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That is the exact process I used, except filled bag till meat was covered. Next batch will cut way back on water.
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Grimpuppy
Ditto to what johnsbrewhouse said. -
I use Dales instead of water.
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I like a good beer brat, but has anyone ever used beer in marinade for whole muscle jerky?
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Ridley Acres said in Jerky help:
I like a good beer brat, but has anyone ever used beer in marinade for whole muscle jerky?
That’s an interesting idea.
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GWG8541 Regular Contributors Cast Iron Sous Vide Canning Team Blue Power User Military Veterans Ohioreplied to Ridley Acres on last edited by
Ridley Acres I’ve done it for fish and shrimp before cooking and put beer in my chili, so its definitely worth a shot.
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Attempt number 2 at jerky using marinade method. A couple things I learned why the first batch wasn’t very good:
My bottled water is 16.9 oz. not sure why I thought they were 8 oz, so my first attempt actually had 34 oz of water and 5 pounds of meat. I put all the meat in a gallon zip lock bag and filled it up with water to cover meat. I knew it didn’t seem right and it wasn’t.
This time I split it up into two vac bags, added 4 oz of water to each bag, and vac sealed it. When you lay the bag flat, the water covers the meat like the tutorial says. I guess I am a slow learner… but this batch now looks like I think it should while marinating instead of a bag full of mostly clear water. Going down to the steak competition tomorrow and will start smoking jerky when I get home. I am confident that this batch is going to be great.
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Bob Stehlik Team Blue Traeger Canning Veteran Power User Regular Contributors Military Veterans Coloradoreplied to Grimpuppy on last edited by
Grimpuppy You Got This! I’m sure it will turn out just fabulous! We all misinterpret things, but we also learn from our mistakes! Many of us will learn from your experience.
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processhead Power User Regular Contributors Smoker Build Expert Bowl Choppers Nebraska Veteran Team Camo
Looks like you are on the road to successful jerky.
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Things are looking good. Jerky on the trays, they have a nice coating of seasoning still, and there was no standing water left in the bag. Off to the smoker.
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Half in the smoker and half in the Treager.
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Ridley Acres I like using whiskey
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shakey69 said in Jerky help:
Ridley Acres I like using whiskey
If the meat gets whiskey, then I get whiskey too LOL!!!
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bocephus Team Orange Power User Canning Masterbuilt Regular Contributors Veteran New Mexico Sous Vide Gardeningreplied to Grimpuppy on last edited by bocephus
Grimpuppy Do you flip the bags every couple of hours or does the vacuum sealing take care of that? I do mine in gallon ziplocks and squeeze air out, lay flat and flip every couple of hours.
