Books on Jerky

I've heard that most of those can be pretty dry... :roll: :laugh:

Willowe1980 said:

Any recommendations on books pertaining to jerky making. Not so much a recipe book. Looking more for techniques on different textures and styles.

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With Jerky there are not a lot of choices.

The toughness of the chew is defined by cutting across the grain for a easier chew, or cut with the grain for a tougher chew.

Whether or not a cure is used can be defined by cold and low temperature smoking, where as smoking at higher temperatures do not require a cure. But higher temperatures also helps to cook the meat vs low temperature smoked and dried jerky.

Once the jerky is properly dried, it doesn't contain enough moisture to support bacterial growth if it is stored properly.

It all boils down to ones personal preferences and choices. You are limited only by your imagination for flavor profiles.

The following tutorial/recipes use TenderQuick due to the wide availability of the product. The beginner doesn't have to buy a scale, calculate, and measure out proper ratios. Any mid level experienced person in meat curing can easily forgo the TenderQuick and calculate the proper cure ratios. The tutorial is designed for the beginner.

Some will say that TenderQuick is outdated and antiquated, I disagree; Europeans (and others) have been curing meats for thousands of years, making some of the most highly prized cured meats in the world. Yet they use a premix formulation similar to TenderQuick with a slightly different formulation. Although their product goes by different names depending upon the language, they share the same formulation. European versions of our curing salt pre-mix are Pronto cure, Colorozo salt, Pokelsalz, or Peklosol, which already have a considerable amount of salt in the mixture with much less sodium nitrite. They are a bonded mixture of 99.4% salt and 0.6% sodium nitrite. These have been in use since the creation of the "Sausage Laws".


Feel free to calculate your own ratios if you wish to use cure #1.












A-Maze-N Pellet Smoker - http://www.amazenproducts.com/product_p/amnps5x8.htm

Hi-Mountain Jerky Kits - https://www.himtnjerky.com/jerky-cure-and-seasoning-kits/

Where to buy Hi-Mountain - https://www.himtnjerky.com/jerky-cure-and-seasoning-kits/

I believe Thirdeye has several posts about making jerky as well. Maybe he'll post his links in this thread as well.

ShadowDriver said:

I've heard that most of those can be pretty dry... :roll: :laugh:

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Well played, Sir. :clap: