Meat Preservation - beef jerky

 Hey guys, I am back! In this post I will be showing and telling you how to make beef jerky. Before this assignment I had never eaten beef jerky before and I learned that I don’t like it, but hey that’s part of learning! 

Speaking of learning, this time I learned to sit down and properly translate my recipe from the imperial units to metric and scale it to my needs to avoid over seasoning. 

And I learned that the recommendations around how to preserve dried meat like jerky is incredibly confusing and directly contradicts itself, so I went with what seemed the safest and most logical to me. But let’s first go through the recipe:

Making beef jerky

Time needed: 3 days total 

Ingredients: 

300gr of beef 

40ml Worcester sauce 

40ml soy sauce 

2g of pepper 

5.3g of salt 

4g of brown salt 

1g of garlic powder

1g of onion  1g of oregano

80ml water 

Day 1 - marinating: 

Cut the meat into thin even strips, cut away the fat and muscles to avoid the jerky to be tough to chew. 

Prepare the marinade by combining the ingredients into a bowl 

Split the meat into 2 zip-lock bags and divide the marinade into it

Refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours to marinate. 

Day 2 - drying: 

Preheat the oven to 75°C on circulating air.

Take the strips of meat out of the bag and put them on a plate with kitchen paper, use it to absorb excess liquid by gently pressing 

Put the strips on a baking sheet lined with paper and put into the oven if it's heated enough. Use a wooden spoon to keep the oven door slightly open to let the humidity escape the meat. 

Keep the meat in the oven for an hour. 

Afterwards, put it on trays of a dehydrator. I decided to dehydrate mine for 4 to 5 hours on 55°C. 

Let the strips cool in a brown paper bag, do not use an airtight container as the heat will cause condensation and the meat will get less dry. 

If you wish to acquire a feline companion, I recommend you open the window to the kitchen at the same time. 

Day 3: Vacuum sealing 

Follow the instructions on your vacuum sealing machine, they can differ greatly from one another. 

Discussion on temperatures: 

I ended up following the USDA’s (United States Department of Agriculture) advice on how to safely dry beef, because they are one of the only major health organisations that I could find that had concrete advice on how to make it. 

According to them, you should first cook the beef in the oven at 160F (=71°C) to kill the bacteria and make sure the inside temperature of the meat reaches temperatures where bacteria cannot survive fast enough to not make them heat resistant first. (USDA, 2016)

Afterwards they advise for the jerky to be dehydrated at 130 to 140 F (=55-60°C) for an imprecise amount of time. I chose to go for 4 to 5 hours because most recipes I consulted had mentioned this time frame. When I went in to retrieve the dried meat it was like described in the original recipe I followed “The jerky will be done when it bends and cracks but does not break in half.” (Will, 2025)

This was very confusing, the USDA for example does not say how home-made beef jerky should be kept at all “Commercially packaged jerky can be kept 12 months; home-dried jerky can be stored 1 to 2 months.” (USDA, 2016). But the original recipe I worked with speaks of vacuum sealing which is why I ended up doing just that. Although something went wrong, it was perfectly vacuum sealed the Saturday I went in for it and I took it out of my backpack on Sunday evening to pack my bag for class and discovered the meat had mobility within the bag now. However there is no smell coming from the bag and the jerky is incredibly smelly so it should leak which isn't happening. I am not sure what exactly went wrong but the seams are all perfectly sealed. 

Taste test: 

I never had beef jerky before so I thought I’d try some even if I am mildly allergic to soy. My doctor said I was still allowed to have some on occasion which is why I did this, if your doctor says to not do it - please don’t eat things you are allergic to. 

My conclusion is: I am not missing out on a tasty treat. I think it's too chewy for my personal opinion and tastes too strongly of spices. For a hike I’d much rather pack salami sticks. 

USDA. (2016, November 3). Jerky and food Safety | Food Safety and Inspection Service. Retrieved November 1, 2025, from https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/meat-fish/jerky

Will. (2025, August 31). How to make beef jerky in a dehydrator. Jerkyholic. https://www.jerkyholic.com/how-to-make-beef-jerky-with-a-dehydrator/#%f0%9f%a7%82-how-to-make-the-marinade