Never had deer jerkey... Whats it taste like!?!?
That right there has to be remedied! When I make another batch or have some given to me...expect a package in the mail man.
bbush, A 100 pounds....that lasts what 2 maybe 3 weeks? j/k Jerky is made for saving but dang it goes sooooooo quick in my house. I'm cool with low and slow also, How long does your jerky take? and have you noticed much difference if your trays are over loaded or would you suggest lots of space and less meat at 1 time? Have you ever tried ground deer jerky? It was my absolute fav growing up and I'm getting my aunt to teach me this year. You use a press to make flat sticks and its softer....Yum. Plus I kinda....already ground a whole deer minus the loins already But since loin steaks have a tendancy to sit in my freezer, I was thinking of jerky'n some and grinding the rest up with pure bacon fat for hamburger steaks. ( I mixed in whole hog sausage and bacon with the rest of the deer this year. I've found that every year I have steaks the next year but...never have burger left, so just went with grinding the whole dang thing this year )
I don't think deer jerky taste any different than beef jerky. I'll send you some LC if I don't eat it all first.
AH- No it doesn't stick around very long. I have to hide it from myself to make it last more than a couple days.
I usually start the dehydrator after work so 6PM or so and leave it run for several hours on med/high. As I sort through and flip pieces over while I am still awake. If the jerky bends instead of tears I leave it on longer. Depending on how big of batch I make, I will turn it down to low and leave it run over night. Checking it first thing in the morning 4AM, and it is usually finished up. Again checking if it bends. I would say it usually takes 8-10 hours.
I usually load the tray as full as I can get it, with most of the pieces touching each other, but not overlapping. As the meat starts to dry out, there will be gaps in between the pieces and I will start combining the trays. Not sure if it is necessary, but it is just what I do. Even though most people say you don't need to I also rotate the trays top to bottom throughout the whole process. It seems to ensure the majority of the meat gets done at the same time. If I cut a few pieces to thick I will leave them on 1 or 2 of the last trays longer.
I will make the ground jerky once I run out of whole muscle. I pretty much follow the same process as the whole muscle jerky. Defrost a few pounds of ground deer, mix in the marinade and let it sit for 24 hours. Then I use a jerky gun, which basically looks like a caulking gun, but for meat. Since the trays are round, I just start in the center and spin the tray around until it is completely full. I like the ground deer jerky, but I eat it way to fast.
Over the years with most of the butcher shops closing in the small towns around my home town, my dad has purchased all of the equipment to process the deer ourselves. During/after deer season his shop turns into our own little butcher shop.
We turn the back straps into tenderized deer steaks. (My favorite)
As mentioned before we use all of the whole muscles from the rear quarters for jerky.
We debone/defat/deslimy stuff the rest of the meat and coarse grind it. We then decide how much breakfast sausage, bratwurst, hamburger patties, and ground burger we are going to have and weigh them out into separate totes. Then stick them back in the walk in cooler until we are ready to work on them.
For the breakfast sausage we buy pork butts, and debone them and coarse grind them. We then mix it 50/50 with coarse ground deer, and fine grind them into 1 lb packages, and freeze.
Depending on what flavor of bratwurst we make some call for mixing the deer with beef or pork. The ones that call for beef we will buy 70/30 beef in 10lb tubes from the local grocery store, the pork ones we use the same pork butts as the breakfast sausage. The seasoning packets are usually for 30lbs so we mix 15lbs deer 15lbs pork or beef and fine grind it. We then use a sausage stuffer, and put them into natural hog casings. We separate them out into meal size portions, wrap in plastic, freezer paper, and freeze. This year we made 30lbs each of Italian, German, and Chorizo.
There is a little contraption that attaches to the sausage stuffer that allows you to make 1/4 pound hamburger patties. For standard hamburger patties we mix the ground deer 50/50 with ground beef, fine grind them and run them through the stuffer. We put a piece of wax paper between each patty, and put three patties per package. We then wrap them in plastic, freezer paper and freeze.
We have added Jalapeno pieces from the garden to them also which turns out pretty tasty if you like a little heat.
We also make bacon burger patties, where we buy 10lb boxes of bacon ends from the grocery store, coarse grind, mix 50/50 with ground deer, fine grind and run through the stuffer.
Whatever is left of ground deer we mix 50/50 with ground beef, fine grind, and put them in 1lb packages and freeze.
If you've never seen canned deer meat...it looks odd in the jar. But don't let how it looks fool ya, Its fantastic and goes from a muddy red color to perfectly brown in the pan/pot. ( saying this because I've known people to be a lil grossed out when 1st seeing it and tossing out perfectly good meat.)
We didn't can any deer this year, but we have in the past. I agree it looks a little funky after it has been canned. My favorite thing to do with canned deer is dump it into a pan on the stove on low heat, mix in BBQ sauce and it is basically a BBQ Beef sandwich. Pretty tasty.