Hi All,
I have been making my own jerky and pemmican because of this MT forum. My initial motive was to find "fast food" alternatives that are in my MT. So here's links to some awesome sites where you can find the original recipes.
http://paleofood.com/jerky.htm
http://www.paleodiet.com/
http://paleofood.com/
http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/
What I ended up doing (that is the easiest for me) is take ground buffalo meat that's been frozen for more than 14 days (per Sally Fallon this kills parasites etc.) , defrost, spice up w/some organic thyme and then roll into small balls and flatten out in palms of hand. Put on cookie sheet (not teflon or stick free kind...but the kind that stick). Place in oven w/door cracked open (important that the door is open) and w/temperature as low as possible (I use the warm option on my oven so it's below 150 degrees) and then "cook" for a few hours. Flip over for another hour or so.
How long should I cook the jerky?
This is the tricky part. Each oven varies on how low it can go, so you check the patties every hour. Take paper towels and blot off any fat that surfaces. You don't want to over cook the jerky. It should be dry and BEND not crack. So play around. I find mine only takes a couple hours.
The Downside: homemade jerky like mine molds after a month or so. The kind in the store uses sugar as a key preservative. For long trips homemade jerky won't work.
Some folks refrigerate their jerky to prolong it's shelf life.
Please post your experience or other websites, products we can buy etc.
Cheers,
Suzanne