How much should jerky shrink?

[texasfiddlefan]

If you start with 5lbs. of trimmed meat how much jerky by weight will you end up with?  1lb. 2lbs. 3lbs.?

 

[eman]

I don't think there is a true answer for this question as there are to many varibles.

 Type of meat, thickness of the cut, moisture content of the meat,smoking / drying temps . etc etc.

 Best thing i can tell you is record your weight of the meat after slicing and trimming and record your smoking / drying temps and times, also outside temps. This  will give you basis to go by .

 

[southensmoker]

I found that I was losing about 80% of the weight when I would make jerky.

 

[mballi3011]

You will lose alot of the weight for you are dehydrating the meat and thats taking all the moisture out of it and thats almost all the weight. You do have alot of varibles too like Bob (eman) said. So if it means that much to you then i would keep a log on how much weight you started with and ended with and you will have your answer.

 

[rbranstner]

I was making jerky a few weekends ago in my dehydrator and I read the directions to see what they had to say about length of time and what not and the directions say to figure at least 50% of the weight will be gone. But as they mentioned above there are so many variables involved so I don't know how you can come up with a for sure estimate.

 

[bob1961]

i made 8 lbs of venison into 3 3/4 lbs of jerky after true cold air drying....i don't worry much bout weights before and after as i still get the same amount of peices i cut up for it.........bob

....

 

[uncle_lar]

right around 50% for me.

 

[texasfiddlefan]

I want to thank everyone for their responces.  I started with 5 lbs. of trimmed meat and ended up with 2 lbs. of jerky. I guess thats in the ballpark.