Let’s talk Jerky

[brainsausage]

Hi everybody!

So I just purchased one of these suckers to use up excess brisket scrap at the bbq:

https://www.lemproducts.com/product/jerky-cannon/jerky-cannon-gun-accessories

I’ve made all kinds of force meats, literally thousands of pounds worth at this point! But I’ve yet to play around with extruded jerkies. Before I go digging around online I thought I’d see if anybody on here has any experience in this area. Grind size, seasoning suggestions, drying tips, etc.

Thanks in advance!

- Josh

 

[chinacats]

Lots of experience eating but none in making...but if you're looking for a guinea pig just let me know.

 

[panda]

just make different beer flavored ones, one for each brewery

 

[erickso1]

Something appealing about owning something called a Jerky Cannon. Love jerky but no experience with extruded.

 

[GLE1952]

I add powded milk to the mix, gives it nearly the same final consistency of tender full muscle
1-1.2 oz for 5 lb of mix
I'm sure other binders would work
Hardest spice to judge is salt, since other ingredients like soy sauce etc already contain salt, other than that what ever meat spices sound like jerky to you
I tend to like Worcestershire and garlic with jalapeno and habanero powder to taste

 

[slickmamba]

ive only ever done dehydrator +/- smoker. Jerky cannon sounds fun though

 

[DeepCSweede]

We have one. It works pretty well with venison jerky but I prefer whole muscle jerky's personally. We generally will use our scrap for sausage or hot sticks (thin sausages about 1/2 to 3/4"). I agree with using powdered milk. The other part is finding the sweet spot for texture and not overcooking it. It will get hard as a rock and not chewy at all if you over dry it.

 

[brainsausage]

just make different beer flavored ones, one for each brewery

Hah! I’d have to open a separate jerky only operation with the number of breweries in this town!

 

[brainsausage]

We have one. It works pretty well with venison jerky but I prefer whole muscle jerky's personally. We generally will use our scrap for sausage or hot sticks (thin sausages about 1/2 to 3/4"). I agree with using powdered milk. The other part is finding the sweet spot for texture and not overcooking it. It will get hard as a rock and not chewy at all if you over dry it.

That’s what I’m looking to troubleshoot. Fortunately I have a bunch of smokers that are running at a variety of different temps to play around with. They all have their own different humidity levels that vary to some degree... I’ve done hot sticks in the past that came out with varied success. Thanks for the dry milk tip guys, I’ve been using it for years in all of our sausages but for some reason it didn’t occur to me to apply to the extruded jerky product. I can see it helping a lot with texture and moisture dispersal now that I think on it.