Venison Jerky

Last year for Christmas my present from my parents was a Manual jerky Slicer by Cabelas. Since we have a decent amount of burger, roasts, and steaks in the freezer already I got it out and put it to good use during our latest slice and dice festival. First off, having never used a Jerky Slicer before I was curiuos as to how well it would work. It looked simple enough and I’m happy to say it worked awesome. It was very easy to slice perfect 1/4 thick by any length pieces of jerky I wanted. 

Altogether we ended up with about 8 lbs of 1/4″ slices of meat. Josh took four pounds home to make his own batch and I took four pounds home to experiment with. I slightly adapted a recipe I found on AllRecipes.com and got to work. 

Here is the recipe I used:

1. 4 lbs venison strips

2. 4 Tablespoons Onion Powder

3. 1 1/3 Teaspoons Black Pepper

4. 1 1/3 Teaspoons Garlic Powder

5. 2 pinches of salt

6. 1 Teaspoon dry Italian Style dressing mix

7. 1 cup Worcestershire Sauce

8. 1 cup Soy Sauce

9. Cayenne Pepper to taste

10. 2 Spoonfuls of brown sugar

After dumping this concoction over the meat I let it sit for 20 hours in the refrigerator. When it came time to cook it I pushed a toothpick through 2 or 3 pieces at a time and hung them on the oven racks. The recipe called for cooking them at 150 degrees for 4 hours but my oven only goes as low as 170 degrees. I still ended up cooking them for 4 hours and probably should have let them go longer because they were a little moist still. The problem was that the every time I opened the door to check on them I also tasted a piece and After 4 hours I couldn’t wait any longer. 

A plate of great tasting jerky for me and anyone else lucky enough to have a piece!