how do i make my own jerky!?

[odin]

My little one is on a 100% raw soupy, but we're having trouble getting her on to chunks and ultimately on to bone. We'll get there i'm sure, but in the mean time, i want to give her something to chew on. she seems to miss the chewing up she got from kibble. I don't want to use nbones, as much as she loves the workout it gives her jaw.

So anyone out there know how to make your own tough jerky i can give her to work out her chewy needs on?

[1]

1 remove fat. 2 cut meat into thin long strips an 18th to 25th inch thick. The thinner the meat, the easer to dry. 2 Hang them to dry on poles. A book told me to check if its dry by bending, if it bends without breaking its to wet, if it crumbles its to dry. All it says is to put strips of meat on a poll to dry, it don't say what makes it dry! If you make your own though, don't use salt! Salt is evil for a ferrets stomic! Now I want jerky!

[sherrylynne]

If you have a dehydrator, use that. If not, what Aaron has suggested above will work, as long as it's cut really thin, and hung up in a very dry, preferably warm, area.
I do know you can make it with an oven, but I'm not sure how to do that.

[mustelidmusk]

I have a food dehydrator that works great. I use ground chicken, turkey, beef, bison, lamb, pork right out of the supermarket. the dehydrator came with a "gun" similar to the kind you squeeze cookies out of. All I do is select the spout for the width of the treats I want to make, screw the spout onto the "gun", stuff the meat into the gun tube, screw the back on and start pumpimping out treats drectly onto the dehydrator trays.

The dehydrator has a fan on top so you do't have to shuffle the shelves around during the drying process. when the treats are done, I put them in a zip lock freezer bags, freeze some ad keep some i the fridge. unstack the trays ad the bottom of the dehydrator, disassemble the gun. put everything in the dishwasher excpt for the top fan unit!!!

PLEASE NOTE, they say to NOT put the trays i the dishwasher. I've had no trouble, but I have a dishwasher that does not use a heating element to dry the dishes. (It's a Bosch)

Done!!! I now have jerky made from 3 lbs of meat!!!! the prep work took about a half how. cleaqnup took 15 minutes.

Here is the dehydrator I have:
www.amazon.com/Open-Country-Dehydrator-Trailmaster-Thermostat/dp/B002931032

There was a discussion o dehydrators on this site quite some time back.....I bet a search on dehydrators will turn something up. There are differnt types of units (some use a bi of heat, others do not, etc.

I'll say one thig - the dehydrator has more than paid for itself 10 times over - my brats are really into the treats for their foraging cups!!!

-jennifer

[shannonthemorgan]

There is a cook on the food network that built his own dehydrator for much less. You may have to dry for a little longer as the instructions here were for fruit, but he has also done this with jerky.


FOOD DEHYDRATOR, ALTON BROWN STYLE:
You can make your own at home that will work perfectly. All you need is a box fan, and four cellulose, rather than Fiberglas, heater or furnace filters. Now you can get these at your local hardware store. They’re extremely cheap. Sometimes, they come with this kind of little paper grid over it, and you can just cut all that off. Now a lot of food is wet and/or sticky when cut so you need something to keep it from sticking to the filters. Look for commercial “Dehydrator Tray Liners” which are used in store-bought dehydrators, you can find them on the net.

To assemble your dehydrator, place one filter on the fan so that the ridges would be parallel to the floor when standing upright. The first mat of food goes down. Another mat goes on top to sandwich for safety. And then another filter for proper air flow. You only want to do this 3 stacks high, four and there are so many filters that the air flow is impeded so much that that last layer on the outside does not dry properly. The last filter goes on with the metal facing out, if it’s there. A couple of bungee cords to hold those filters in place. Don’t stretch them too tight, they could pop.

Set up your home-made dehydrator some place nice and peaceful, turn on your fan, and let it do its thing for 42 to 48 hours.