Making your own beef jerky is a relatively simple task. Provided that you have a way to dry, smoke, or cook your beef, it will be a piece of cake. The only difficulty is deciding which beef or meat of your choice you are going to use for your jerky. So we’ll start there.
Generally, if you live in or have visited the United States, you have most likely eaten U.S. Choice steak, if not U.S. Prime. For this reason, I recommend using U.S. Choice beef for your beef jerky as it won’t be as expensive to use U.S. Prime. There are a total of 8 USDA Beef Grades, of which I only suggest using the top three beef grades to make your own beef jerky at home.
Now we’ll have to see the types of beef cuts you can use to make your own beef jerky. The beef cuts you can use vary by country, and since I reside in the United States, I’ll be using American cuts of beef to describe which are the best beef cuts for different styles and flavors of beef jerky.
If you plan on making large batches of beef jerky, you will need to make sure you choose the best cut of beef to minimize potential bacterial growth within your stored beef jerky. That’s why we choose low fat (low moisture), lean proteins like the sirloin, top round, and eye round, but other beef cuts can be used depending on how long you plan to store it. If you plan on eating it within two days, you can use any beef of your choice.
If you’re having trouble deciding, you can try to narrow down your preferred beef cut by your tastes. Do you like sweet, savory, salty, peppery, tender, soft beef jerky? Typically, the fattier the meat, the more flexible and tender the beef jerky, but also the shorter you can store it. So you see there are some trade offs that come with higher quality beef jerky.
Nine out of ten times, I like to use beef cuts with higher fat content because I don’t like to eat beef jerky that is hard and really dry. I should mention also that even if you choose a low fat cut, you can control how dry your beef jerky is by moderating how long you dry, smoke or cook it.
So now all that’s left is to find the right beef jerky recipe and technique for making beef jerky at home.
Make Beef Jerky In Oven
Make Beef Jerky In Microwave
Make Beef Jerky On Grill
Make Beef Jerky In Smoker
Make Beef Jerky In Food Dehydrator
Make Beef Jerky In Sun