Dehydrated Meat

BBQ Jerky Strips

Name: BBQ Jerky Strips
Cook time: 9 h
Total time: 9 h
Yield: 1 batch
Ingredients: 2.6 kg lean minced beef; 1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) salt; 1 1/4 teaspoons garlic powder; 1 1/4 teaspoons onion powder; 3 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar; 5/8 cup Worcestershire sauce; 1 1/4 cups barbecue sauce, slightly diluted with water

4.5 (574)

Ground beef is extremely affordable, making it a great choice for dehydrating a large batch of beef jerky. This recipe calls for barbecue sauce. While any type works well, the hickory smoke complements this recipe. Jerky cannons are extremely useful for shaping ground meats. They are generally sold as a separate accessory by the major dehydrator brands.

Machine Recommendation

1 Zone / 10 Tray / 0.6m² Tray Area / EU
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Dehydrating Time 9 hours
Total Time 9 hours

Ingredients

2.6 kg lean minced beef
1 1/2 tablespoons (23 ml) salt
1 1/4 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/4 teaspoons onion powder
3 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
5/8 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 1/4 cups barbecue sauce, slightly diluted with water

Instructions

Keep the beef in the fridge until the moment you need it, and chill the mixing bowl for ten minutes first. Warm mince smears inside a jerky gun and comes out as a ragged rope rather than a strip.
Work the salt, garlic, onion and sugar through the raw mince with your fingertips only. Kneading it like dough develops the protein and gives you a strip with the texture of a sausage.
Dilute the barbecue sauce with water until it pours freely, then mix it and the Worcestershire in. Neat sauce is thick with sugar, and sugar on the outside of a strip sets into a skin that seals the moisture underneath it.
Load the gun in small amounts and tap it down to drive the air out. An air pocket leaves a hollow, and the meat around a hollow tears when you turn the strip.
Lay the strips straight onto mesh with a finger of space between them. They spread a little as they warm, and two that meet fuse into a slab.
Dry at 65 °C for 9 hours. This is raw beef, so the high setting is a safety measure rather than a speed one, and lowering it to protect the texture is the wrong trade.
Blot the fat that beads on the surface with paper towel twice during the run. Even lean mince renders some, and fat left on a strip is what turns the batch rancid in the jar.
Cool a strip and bend it: it should crack and show a fibrous break without coming apart. One that snaps clean in two went too far and will be crumbs within a week.
Keep the cooled strips in a jar for two weeks, or vacuum-seal and freeze for six months. Ground jerky has far more surface area than a sliced strip and will not keep as long.