As much as I'd like to say I never mess up, it ain't so, ha !
One of my co-workers, after sampling my beef jerky gave me a few deer tenderloins to make jerky from on a 50/50 split deal.
It's been a few years since I've worked much with game meat for jerky so I followed my standard recipe when I jerk beef.
The issue I encountered was forgetting the lack of fat content in game meat. All seemed well at the prep stages...
sliced and laid out nice...
spiced and sauced per my usual ( High Mtn. Jerky Cure and Seasoning w/ K.C. Masterpiece Teriyaki Sauce - because Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce doesn't seem to be available around here )...
racked and stacked, 200*, hour of hickory smoke, 2-3 hours done time, all going well. Exceeeept, looked too dry after 2 hours so I re-basted with more Yaki sauce ( the mistake).
When it came out I sampled a piece and the extra sauce was so caramalized and goopy I was like...WTH ! UGH!! Too sticky, too syrupy ! Made the hard decision to run each piece under cold water and scrub off excess sauce with my fingers then dry with paper towel.
.
Final product was real good
but the extra saucing caused stress, worry and extra work that could have been avoided. Next deer jerky I make will just add a hair more sauce for the initial marinade instead of basting. My co-worker was happy and I ended up with a pound or so of nice deer jerky for myself so all is good in the end.
3 deer caught on trail cam 20 yards from my ambush site. Hopefully next week I'll have my own pile of meat to work with
One of my co-workers, after sampling my beef jerky gave me a few deer tenderloins to make jerky from on a 50/50 split deal.
It's been a few years since I've worked much with game meat for jerky so I followed my standard recipe when I jerk beef.
The issue I encountered was forgetting the lack of fat content in game meat. All seemed well at the prep stages...
sliced and laid out nice...
spiced and sauced per my usual ( High Mtn. Jerky Cure and Seasoning w/ K.C. Masterpiece Teriyaki Sauce - because Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce doesn't seem to be available around here )...
racked and stacked, 200*, hour of hickory smoke, 2-3 hours done time, all going well. Exceeeept, looked too dry after 2 hours so I re-basted with more Yaki sauce ( the mistake).
When it came out I sampled a piece and the extra sauce was so caramalized and goopy I was like...WTH ! UGH!! Too sticky, too syrupy ! Made the hard decision to run each piece under cold water and scrub off excess sauce with my fingers then dry with paper towel.
.
Final product was real good
but the extra saucing caused stress, worry and extra work that could have been avoided. Next deer jerky I make will just add a hair more sauce for the initial marinade instead of basting. My co-worker was happy and I ended up with a pound or so of nice deer jerky for myself so all is good in the end.
3 deer caught on trail cam 20 yards from my ambush site. Hopefully next week I'll have my own pile of meat to work with