Hey all, I am looking into making some old-fashioned dried beef which I have also found is referred to as chipped beef. I am looking at all of the different cures that I could potentially use to make dried beef. Many recipes that I have found use Tenderquick and brown sugar to cure for about ten days in the fridge. I was wondering if there were any good Waltons Cures that would be good to use to either dry cure or wet brine. I am looking at the Holly Quick Cure to try to use in a wet brine for my Dried Beef. Would that type of cure work? I plan to cure some eye of rounds, rinse off the brine whether I use a dry cure or wet brine and then season the rounds with a seasoning mixture before putting them in the smoker. Any help is appreciated, thanks!
BRYARRR_80 I want to say try the Walton’s Bold, but for chipped beef, really I would probably just try to keep it very simple with the basics. Someone else may have tried something in particular that works better.
BRYARRR_80 hi, there have been a few threads on this in the past. I ended up researching the commercial product. Here is a post, Ive got another somewhere…
https://meatgistics.waltons.com/post/80261
Dried beef, you don’t need a premade cure. It is just 12% salt, 3.4% sugar, sodium nitrite cure at 2.5g/kg meat, and sodium erythorbate cure accelerator.
Weigh meat, weigh out correct spices, rub all into meat evenly, stick in bag in fridge 10 days or so to cure. Take out and dry, or slice then dry.
Google biltong, it’s almost same thing.
BRYARRR_80 Dave is spot on, and do NOT use tenderquick at all use cure #1 and whatever else you want, but if you want just chipped beef stick with Dave’s ratios and you will do good. You absolutely want to use sodium erythrobate for its antioxidant properties, trust me the meat will get rancid if not preserved it correctly.
Love that stuff as gravy on biscuits. Wil be trying this soon what cut of beef would be best? Eye of round sounds useable . By “dry” Do you mean in a smoker to what temp or a dehydrator?
samspade
Drying can be problematic with this one due to large size. Basically this is usually uncooked, so not a smoker. However a dehydrator dries out surface too fast giving you dry ring, the center moisture gets locked in and can’t get out past hard shell. But if you don’t make it in large diameter like a whole eye of round, then dehydrator.
Here, seriously just read this and watch the youtube videos for a great process that makes this product 
here are 4 blogs on making similar dried beef products and how to dry them. They each also have a youtube video on his channel.
https://twoguysandacooler.com/biltong/
https://twoguysandacooler.com/making-dry-aged-italian-beef/
https://twoguysandacooler.com/basturma/
https://twoguysandacooler.com/making-bresaola-better/
If you haven’t discovered Eric’s blog and channel, I think you will love his expertise and will have lots to watch for a few weeks!
samspade I used eye of round because you want as little fat as possible to reduce oxidation. Dave’s videos that he referred to are good, but I went a different way and it came out good except for the first time that I tried without cure and it was a little rancid. I cured the whole muscle as you would any other whole muscle with cure #1 and after the cure, I used a slicer and sliced the meat a little thin and then used a dehydrator. If you slice it thin then you will not get the ring that Dave is talking about, it will actually come out much like the store bought product. Try it and get your biscuits ready it is easy and worth it in my opinion.
mrobisr thank you sir. It’s definitely going to be made either this or next week.
Dave in AZ thanks . Watching now.
Dave in AZ thanks for sharing those videos
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