Easy Venison Jerky

So part of off the grid living is learning how to preserve meat. I figured I would start easy and make use of some of the venison my husband provided for us this year. (this summer I would like to try dehydrating out doors)

I have made venison jerky in the past, but have mainly used liquid marinades and used whole muscle meat. So this time I decided I would try burger, and a dry mix. When I was younger my grandmother and I would make jerky and we bought this mix, Hi Mountain Jerky Cure and Seasoning:

It can season up to 15 pounds of meat. I tried it once on whole muscle meat and it was delicious. Plus it is only around 7 dollars and available at Wal-Mart.

The kit comes with a shaker, cure mix, seasoning mix, and an instruction book. The book...I guess it is more of a pamphlet, tells you how much of each mixture to put in the shaker depending on if you are using whole muscle or ground meat and how many pounds. I found this quite useful, as normally I don't follow a recipe for anything, but rather throw things together and taste as I go. But I wanted to get this right so the meat stays preserved for as long as possible.

I have had this ol' thing laying around for a long time. I even tried to sell it in a yard sale once, but it didn't sell, needless to say I am glad about that now :) It is a Nesco Beef Jerky Factory Plus.

It comes with the ratchet style jerky gun, a thin jerky attachment and two sized snack stick attachments  It also came with instructions, 10 seasoning packets (beef pepperoni, cajun, original and peppered mixes) and measuring spoons.
What I really liked about this gun is how easy it was to use. The ratchet style actually helped moderate how thick the strips were. This was very nice because my daughter was even able to help because the flow was so easy to regulate.

Here Jaydin is helping me out by prepping the jerky we made on the dehydrator. Out of about 3 pounds of meat we got 5 full trays and 2 cookie sheets for the oven:

My dehydrator is nothing special. It is an old Mr. Coffee, and doesn't even have a temperature regulator. But I have dehydrated mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, celery, bananas, strawberries and now jerky without a problem.

And we have the finished product from the dehydrator:

It was on the dehydrator for about 8 1/2 hours. I only had to blot the "fat" twice. I think you may have to blot it more if it were beef, but venison is very lean and didn't have much fat to cook out.

The finished product from the oven:

The jerky in the oven was on the lowest temperature my oven would go, and only took 3 hours. The texture is much coarser  and the flavor isn't as bold. But they are both delicious and I will be using ground meat, High Mountain mix and my Nesco Jerky Factory Plus kit again

Until next time God Bless <3