How to Make Beef Jerky at Home
One of the questions we get asked most often is: how can I make jerky at home? Well, as jerky makers ourselves, we figured it was about time we put together a proper guide! Let's start with choosing the meat, because in cooking, good ingredients are everything.
For making jerky, we recommend using top round (paahtopaisti). In our experience, top round gives the best texture in the finished jerky, but other cuts work too. Just keep in mind that a cut like bottom round (kulmapaisti) will give you a chewier result than the other cuts.
Choosing the right cut for jerky
The quality of beef cuts at the meat counter and in store shelves varies enormously, so it's important to make sure the meat has had a little time to age. In practice, this means looking for a best-before date that's as close as possible. It's also worth paying attention to how much silverskin and membrane is on the surface of the meat, since this saves you money: you don't want to pay for trimmings you'll just cut away. Above all, though, we want to stress that the cut should be lightly marbled, meaning you can see thin white streaks of fat running between the muscle fibers. This is what affects the texture of the final product the most.
Making the marinade for your jerky
If you plan to marinate the meat as soon as the marinade is ready, pop the whole piece of beef in the freezer to firm up before you start mixing the marinade. Letting it firm up makes it much easier to slice the meat into thin strips.
We like to use soy sauce as the base for our marinade, simply because it makes it easy to get the right level of saltiness in your jerky. Here's a simple, basic seasoning that's easy to build on according to your own taste.
- 1 l soy sauce
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 dl sugar syrup
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Mix the ingredients together and that's your jerky marinade ready to go. A basic batch like this is plenty for a 1.5–2 kg cut, and it's easy to add more spices to suit your taste. It's a good idea to make the marinade in a bowl large enough to also hold the sliced beef.
Prepping the cut into jerky-ready slices
We put the cut in the freezer before making the marinade. The ideal time for it to firm up is about an hour. At that point the meat is still easy to slice but hasn't frozen solid. It's also nicer to handle when it's slightly firm, and slicing is easier too.
Back at the store, we already paid attention to choosing a cut without too much membrane. But if there does happen to be a lot of silverskin or external fat on the cut, it's worth trimming it off with a knife.
There are different schools of thought here too. Some people like to cut the meat with the grain, which gives a chewier result and lets you really gnaw on your jerky cowboy-style. We prefer cutting against the grain, meaning you slice straight through the muscle fibers running through the cut. We think the texture is better this way, but everyone finds the style that suits their own taste by experimenting. A good thickness for each slice is 6–8 mm for jerky. Slice the whole cut into thin strips in one go. Once the cut is fully sliced, it's time to marinate it.
Marinating the meat
You've chosen a marinade bowl big enough to hold the sliced beef. Give the marinade a good stir, scraping along the bottom, before adding the meat so the result is as even as possible. Add the meat strips to the marinade one at a time, making sure each slice is fully opened out so the seasoning can soak evenly into every part of the meat. At this stage it's easiest and most reliable to just dig in with your hands, but remember to handle the sliced beef fairly gently so the tender meat doesn't tear, which makes the next steps easier. Once the sliced meat is in the marinade, put the bowl in the fridge and let the meat rest and soak up the seasoning. We recommend letting the meat rest in the fridge for a full day, so the flavors can really work their way into the meat.
Drying the jerky
This is another point that divides opinion: some prefer to use the oven, others a dehydrator. Our recommendation is to get a dehydrator, simply because it's a more straightforward and tidier way to do it.
After the meat has marinated for a day, there will still be some sauce on the surface, which is good to dry off so the drying process is faster and cleaner. Lay a kitchen towel on your counter and start arranging the meat strips on top of it. Make sure each slice is laid out fully open and not bunched up. Once all the meat is spread out on the towel, pat the strips dry with a second towel to remove any remaining liquid. After patting them dry, start loading the meat into the dehydrator. Arrange the strips carefully on the dehydrator trays so they aren't overlapping, otherwise they won't dry properly. The first time you use a dehydrator, it's a good idea to check more often to see how the different levels are drying. Generally speaking, if the dehydrator is fully loaded, you'll need to rotate the trays more often during the process to get an even result for the finished jerky. Set aside 12–18 hours for the drying process, and be prepared to swap the trays around 2–4 times along the way.
Your finished jerky
You'll know your jerky is done when the meat is firm enough that it barely gives when you squeeze it between your fingers. That said, be careful not to let it get too dry. The jerky has gone too dry when a slice snaps as you bend it. Jerky should stay pliable, though this too is of course a matter of taste, and you'll only learn the right settings for your own dehydrator by doing it several times. It's important to dry the meat long enough that enough moisture is removed, so microbes can't grow, although jerky usually gets eaten up so fast that the microbes wouldn't get a chance anyway. You can store your finished jerky at room temperature in a bag or container of its own. Now go give it a try!
