Ground Beef Jerky Failure

[chopsaw]

noboundaries has you covered , but I was wondering if you flip it during the drying ?

I owe all who helped some jerky and a beer.

How 'bout a picture ?

 

[tallbm]

So first of all thank you to all with your suggestions. Made another round and it came out great. I think the secret was to mix and mix and mix some more. When I was done it was the consistency of paste. In addition I left out Frank's Hot Sauce and Worchester which both had vinegar.

My batch is really what I had been wanting all along. It really looks like jerky without the tough chew. My batch was basic seasoning so there is room for experimenting to dial in my taste.

If I could pick your collective brains one more time I would be grateful for any suggestions. I used a dehydrator on high heat. When it got to the degree of doneness I shut the dehydrator off. My only problem was getting the jerky off the trays. It was stuck like glue to the trays. Would spraying it with Non Stick spray help with that problem?

Thanks again for the suggestions. I owe all who helped some jerky and a beer.

This is awesome to hear!!!
I was pretty confident you just had to simplify and apply some tried and true best practices and it would come out well. I'm glad to hear it did! :)

I would assume some oil rubbed on the racks would work and is about as cheap of a solution as u get. At some point you can just adjust the meat and maybe that does the job but not sure. I use silicon qmats on my smoker racks and the jerky comes right off so I cant offer much advice haha :)

 

[mike k.]

Ok, I'm about to give up on this experiment.

I have a homemade ground beef jerky recipe that really has a great taste to it. My problem is that when after dehydrating the meat it falls apart. In the two batches I have made I have cooked it to long and not long enough. What I am left with are crumbs that would make a average sloppy joe.

I have watched all the You Tube videos and tried to pick up where I am going wrong. All that I have watched shows ground beef jerky that comes out consistent, firm and pliable. How do you get that consistency? One thing I have noticed on You Tube is they can pick up the pieces and flip them. No way with mine. It just falls apart

I use a 93% ground beef

Mix it longer? Maybe to a puree consistency?
Use a binder?
I use Tender Quick should I use Prague #1
Am I cooking at the wrong temperature? I have cooked at 150 degrees and at 135 degrees. No noticeable difference
Do I add more liquid or am I using to much?
I use the LEM Jerky gun. Should I just use a rolling pin?

Any suggestions would be welcomed.

Few things to consider. Best results, fresh not frozen meat. Water % is not an issue unless you have it so thin that during drying it will pull apart in places. Vinegar is not an issue. Here is the bottom line. Lean ground meat is the first issue. If you just have protien and no fat, meat has a bit of trouble binding protien fibers to protien fibers. Fat even as little as 10% during the mixing process acts as a molecular binder. Under mixing meat and spices will cause most of the "powdering". Temp. during mixing should be 42 degrees or colder. This will give you a fuller final texture and body. The meat and spices need to be mixed until you see a sheen on the mixture and a good general stickiness develops. Sticky so that if you grab a handful it doesn't drop from your hand when released. As for a cure just buy online sodium nitrate, not sodium nitrite. It's cheap and the same as Prague #1. Mix in at a rate of 4oz. per 100lbs of meat . Cooking temps are critical for food safety only. You can dry it without cooking at all if so desired. Strange things end up in ground meat which can kill you. So use the cure or cook it, one or the other or both.
Now here is your easy answer to your "falling apart" issue. (4% of the total weight add powdered milk or whey powder. ) Add it in your recipe with all ingredients and all your problems are gone. Whey or powdered milk are complex protiens and simulate fat and bind the protiens of the mixture to the spices and ground meat pieces. Add water (ice water) if the mix gets to thick to stir. People that post Youtube videos hold back info. for reasons I can't figure out. I am Smokin Mike, doing this for 45 years professionally and am happy to help you, Peace to you. Michael

 

[tdiowa]

How 'bout a picture ?

I've made a serious dent in my inventory

 

[chopsaw]

Looks good .

 

[tallbm]

I just scored 6 pounds of 93/7 beef for 50% off at the store.
It is surely going to become jerky but I had to vac seal and freeze it until I can get to it. Mabye in a couple of weekends.

I'm out of jerky so this markdown was a nice find :)

I also got about 9 pounds of 80/20 at 50% off but that is going to go for burgers and other ground meat dishes. 80/20 is waaaaaaay too fatty for jerky. It would be leaking grease the whole time so best used for other dishes :)

 

[tdiowa]

Few things to consider. Best results, fresh not frozen meat. Water % is not an issue unless you have it so thin that during drying it will pull apart in places. Vinegar is not an issue. Here is the bottom line. Lean ground meat is the first issue. If you just have protien and no fat, meat has a bit of trouble binding protien fibers to protien fibers. Fat even as little as 10% during the mixing process acts as a molecular binder. Under mixing meat and spices will cause most of the "powdering". Temp. during mixing should be 42 degrees or colder. This will give you a fuller final texture and body. The meat and spices need to be mixed until you see a sheen on the mixture and a good general stickiness develops. Sticky so that if you grab a handful it doesn't drop from your hand when released. As for a cure just buy online sodium nitrate, not sodium nitrite. It's cheap and the same as Prague #1. Mix in at a rate of 4oz. per 100lbs of meat . Cooking temps are critical for food safety only. You can dry it without cooking at all if so desired. Strange things end up in ground meat which can kill you. So use the cure or cook it, one or the other or both.
Now here is your easy answer to your "falling apart" issue. (4% of the total weight add powdered milk or whey powder. ) Add it in your recipe with all ingredients and all your problems are gone. Whey or powdered milk are complex protiens and simulate fat and bind the protiens of the mixture to the spices and ground meat pieces. Add water (ice water) if the mix gets to thick to stir. People that post Youtube videos hold back info. for reasons I can't figure out. I am Smokin Mike, doing this for 45 years professionally and am happy to help you, Peace to you. Michael

Thanks Mike. A lot of good tips in there and a awesome first post!

 

[archeryrob]

Did you update this recipe? My daughter sent a buck to the butcher to get it caped and came back with 30# of ground from one deer. Way too much with the other deer I have to kill for bologna and snack sticks this year.

 

[tdiowa]

No I did not. I found that mixing it to a paste consistency will get the jerky staying together and not crumbling