Home Made Smoked Beef Jerky

I have for many years now ,made my own beef jerky. I got really invovled with making beef jerky around the time my childern were born. My wife and I found that the kids thought the chunks of jerky I had been making were great to suck on while they cut thier teeth. I am sure that during this time of there lives they got to suck on 2 or 3 hunderd different flavours of beef jerky.
Making beef jerky can be as easy as putting thin slices of very well trimmed beef onto a cake rack , placing the cake rack into a cake pan and placing it into a 175 F
oven and about 10-12 hours later you have Beef Jerky.

If that recipe is just a little to plain for you ,try this one:

1 (1 1/2 lb.) flank steak
1/3 c. soy sauce
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. liquid smoke
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 tsp. lemon pepper

Trim off all visible fat form meat (it becomes rancid). Cut flank steak lengthwise with grain into long thin strips, no more than 1/4 inch thick. Combine remaining ingredients. Pour over beef strips. Let stand 1 hour or cover and refrigerate overnight. (Meat will absorb most of the liquid.)
Arrange strips of meat close together, but not overlapping on cake racks set in shallow baking pans. Bake in VERY SLOW oven, 150-175 degrees, for 11-12 hours. Store in airtight container at room temperature. If all fat has been removed, beef jerky will keep indefinitely.

Jerky was first introduced by the South American (Peru) native tribe called the Quechua (originally part of the ancient Inca Empire) as early as 1550. The product was known back then as Ch'arki. The process method was to cut boned and defatted meat (deer, elk, or buffalo) into quarter-inch slices, which were then rubbed aggressively with salt. This salted meat was then rolled up in the animal's hide for ten or twelve hours for it to absorb the salt and release some of its natural juices. This product was then hung in the sun to dry or even smoked over fires, and finally tied up into convenient bundles for transportation. This Ch'arki product was created as the first known methods to preserve excess game after large successful hunts.

In South America, where there has been a plentitude of meat for hundreds of years, simple drying traditions survived, at least among the poor. The Native Americans on the arid southern borderlands sun-dried venison and buffalo calling it tassajo, which is made with strips of meat dipped in maize flour, dried in the hot sun and wind, then tightly rolled up into balls to be carried easily on journeys.

North American Cree Indians mixed berries and suet (fat) with pounded cooked red meat and pressed into concentrated small cakes to make what is called pemmican. Today's "pemmican" recipe is actually now known as "Kippered". It's a chopped and formed product, placed in a casing and commonly confused with beef jerky. There is also a brand name of beef jerky product out there that goes by the name of Pemmican.

Biltong is a rich inheritance from pioneering South African forefathers who sun dried meat during their trek across the African Subcontinent. African folklore has it that migrating African tribesmen, herding their stock, would place strips of venison under the saddles on their horses as the chaffing would tenderize the meat and the sweat of the animals would spice it! As biltong evolved, seasoning became a dramatic blend of vinegar, salt, sugar, coriander and other spices. These were in abundance in the then Cape Colony, as the French Hugenots produced wine and vinegar from their grape crops and the colony was the halfway stop for seafarers plying the spice routes of the East. Various brine recipes and marinades were created and have been handed down for generations.

The Indians and early settlers made jerky primarily from deer, elk or buffalo using salt (to prevent spoilage) and whatever spices they had. The meat was dried (cured) primarily in the sun. When the Spanish picked it up, the name eventually became known as Charqui. Most travelers preferred to actually pound the charqui vigorously between two large stones and then boil it in water before eating. During the days of ocean exploration and colonization, the Spanish sailors would stock the islands in the pacific with goats. On subsequent or return journeys the sailors would call in and restock their meat supplies from these goats, what couldn't be eaten would be cut into strips and hung from the rigging of their ships and dried.

When the Spanish Conquistadors invaded the America's naturally they carried their dried meat with them. While the natives of North America of course had been drying meat as well, when the invaders arrived and were seen to use a similar process, the natives adopted the Spanish term, only adding their accent, so it became "jerky".

North American Pioneers further evolved the process. Folks who ate jerky were generally travelers, explorers, cowboys, and Native Americans....The simplest method for drying meat was to string it on ropes and then hang it on the outside of the wagon cover. There it would soak up the hot sun for two or three days until it was cured; then it was packed in bags and stored for future use. The "hanging up method", while simple, meant that the meat picked up all the dust and debris from the air. Still, when "hunger stares one in the face one isn't particular". Another way of preparing jerky was to build a scaffold to support the meat over a slow fire and then to smoke the strips. The meat is sliced thin and a scaffold prepared by setting forked sticks in the ground, about three feet high, and laying small poles or sticks crosswise upon them. The meat is laid upon those pieces, as a slow fire built beneath; the heat and smoke completes the process in half a day; and with an occasional sunning the meat will keep for months. While the smoking method required a stopover, as the twentieth-century rolled around, a new awareness for disease and germs became prevalent, and smoking was recognized as much safer than air-drying.

Today jerky is produced from either thin strips of meat (beef, pork, lamb, venison, poultry) or from ground or chopped and formed meat. Most manufacturers are strictly dehydrating the product and introducing smoke or using liquid smoke in their processing. There are a select few that use smoke houses and then refrigerate their products and/or vacuum pack.

Next to Beef Jerky my most favorite snack is a stick of hot PEPPERONI!!! I make a very nice hot smoked pepperoni stick and it is enjoyed by many of my friends and neighbors. The process of making a home made pepperoni sticks is not a hard task, but most people who want a piece of really good pepperoni want it now, not 6 to 8 weeks from now, and that is how long it takes to make great pepperoni. Here is a shorter way to enjoy really good home made pepperoni flavour and not have to wait weeks for it. I have made a few very small changes to the recipe and now you only need to mix and bake and you will have the best tasting HOMEMADE PEPPERONI MEATBALLS on the planet. This recipe is a large batch, but I like them so much it makes no sense to make a smaller quantity. If you want you can cut the ingredients by 1/2 and still have a fine snack while watching your favorite show on T.V. So read carefully and follow the directions carefully.

PEPPERONI MEATBALLS

7 lb of ground pork
3 lb of ground beef
5 tbs of salt
1 tbs of sugar
2 tbs of cayenne pepper
3 tbs paprika
1 tbs crushed anise seed
somewhere between 4 to 8 onces of dry red wine
1 tbsp cracked pepper
2 tbsp garlic powder

Mix the two meats together, add all the other ingredients and mix very well.
Let the meat marinate for at least 2 - 4 hours or more. Make sure you cover the mixture and store in the fridge. Now, make the meat into meatballs. You decide how big you want them because, it's your mouth most of them will be traveling into. Once you have all your meatballs made and on the pans you can put them in a 350 degree oven. Bake the meat balls until done. The time will vary, depending on the size of the meatball, about 15 - 25 minutes. Your Kitchen is going to smell great. The first time I made these meatballs the property values in my neighborhood went up. You can enjoy these meatballs with pasta and sauce, in soup or in a sub sandwich, they are even great all by themselves. I am told that you are what you eat so eat well and be well . ENJOY