# Survival > Primitive Skills & Technology >  Is primitive jerky (dried) safe?

## RandyRhoads

Is primitive jerky that's smoked over a fire or air dried safe to eat? What would kill the worms, parasites, and bacteria?

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## Rick

I have stored jerky for six months and I'm still here to tell the tale. It's important to heat the meat to 160F before drying it. If you heat the meat to 160F you destroy the pathogens on the meat. Heating to around 130F (dehydrator or oven method) you just remove the water, which can leave bacteria present in the meat. But smoking has been done for thousands of years so yes it's safe. Air drying is going to be dependent on the ambient temperature for drying to be successful. You have to be able to dry the meat before it spoils. Trying to dry it in cool or wet weather won't allow that to occur.

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## oldtrap59

Have to agree with Rick here. I have never air dried my jerky. Always use my smoker where I can get the temp up to close to 200 degrees while drying mine. Remember you can use the wifes kitchen stove the same way less the smoke. I've been told it works well. When you get the meat temp up to 160 it's cooked so should have no problems.

Oldtrap

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## hunter63

> Is primitive jerky that's smoked over a fire or air dried safe to eat? What would kill the worms, parasites, and bacteria?


How primitive are you talking?
100 years?....1000 years? 
Oh, you just mean primitive methods?

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## RandyRhoads

Yeah sorry just the method for making it. I'm worried i'd like to make some but how can you be sure you've got it to 160? A temp gun? I have a big chief smoker but I think that only goes to 140, and I was wanting to make it outside replicating how it would need to be done in a primitive situation.

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## Rick

I have a Polder digital thermometer that let's me monitor the temperature of the oven/smoker as well as the internal temp of the meat. If you are in a survival situation you are probably not going to smoke/dry anything. If you do happen to capture some meat via snare or trap you'll want to cook it over a fire to make certain it's safe to eat rather than take several hours and your energy to construct some type of smoker or hang it out to dry where it could attract other predators. 

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## RandyRhoads

Not looking so much at survival. More like primitive homesteading maybe. And say you shot a moose, would you still cook all that up or try to make it so you can store it?

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## Rick

Mea Culpa. I thought you were talking survival. Homesteading would be different.

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## kyratshooter

I have made primitive jerky many times as demonstration at historic sites and in skills workshops.

First, jerk is not cooked, it is dried and smoked.  You never let the meat get hot enough to cook or you defeat the purpose.  160 degrees has distroyed the preservation of the meat and set up a whole different set of baceria to work against.  

Jerk has been a staple preservation method since the first human found out the meat he laid on a rock untill it dried out did not kill him.  Probably since he ran the first lion off a dead sun dried carcass.

Quit turning up your nose, you eat rare steak and have to pour the blood off half way through!  I have seen it too many times to even pay attention to the parisites and diseases issue in a jerky discussion.  If it does not count at the steakhouse it does not count over the campfire.

The drying and smoking cures the meat and the smoke is partly done to keep flies away from the meat as well as add flavor.

It does take all day to jerk meat.  Slice it as thin as possible and salt it if you have salt.  Place it on a rack or grid well above the heat of the fire and use wood that produces generous smoke.  I like to have the grid about 2 feet above the fire and I keep the flames down to a minimum by using punkwood or wet bark as my main fuel.  If the fire under the meat is so hot it hurts my hand it is too hot.

As it dries on one side and becomes brittle, turn it over and continue.  When the meat is black and breaks in shreads when bent it is ready.

No it will not look like what you get at the corner store. 

You can only jerk meats with low fat content, mostly from ungulates.  Fish works very well.  Pork, bear or rodents can not be jerked.  this counts out rabbit jerky, sorry.

Randy, if you PM me I will get you some references and better instructions.

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## RandyRhoads

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUK3kTHPblc I was going off this and other similar ways. This guy did it almost straight outa the Tom Brown book. I get how to do it just not what makes the bugs/eggs safe to eat. Why would rabbit be out, it's extremely low in fat?

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## Rick

> 160 degrees has distroyed the preservation of the meat and set up a whole different set of baceria to work against.


That's nonsense. I make jerky all the time and and heat it to 160. It does not destroy the preservation of the meat. And you cannot set up a whole different set of bacteria since 160F kills all bacteria. 

"*What temperature is needed to kill bacteria in meats and poultry? * 

When meat is cooked to 160°F,_E. coli_ O157 and other pathogens are killed.

http://foodsafety.wsu.edu/consumers/faq3.htm

Further sources: 

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Factsheets/...fety/index.asp

Smoking is a different means of preservation than drying. Hot smoking (using a fire source) actually cooks the meat. Cold smoking is done over low heat and over a long period of time. Cold smoking should only be used when meat has been fermented, salted or cured. Otherwise, you run the risk that bacteria will grow on the  meat. 

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/nc..._postproc.html

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## RandyRhoads

Great info thanks Rick!

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## Phaedrus

Well, I can tell you Alton Brown doesn't cook his jerky!  He lays the meat strips on furnace filters and sets them atop a box fan with no heat at all.  One thing we tend to forget with bacteria is that they need water to live and reproduce.  Once to desiccate them they can't do much (at least the worst pathogens).  This is water we refer to when we mention AWG (water activity).  It's the reason that you can keep rice on the shelf in a cool dry place for years while a loaf of bread will mold.  Salt also inhibits bacteria, as does acidity.  Most jerky marinades are very salty, and that gives you two things (along with removing water) that kill the bugs.

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## Rick

In the second link I posted above it says...

"Marinating meat doesn't make raw meat safe. "Marination alone did not result in significant reduction of the  							  pathogen compared with whole beef slices that were not marinated," concluded the study." 

Ya'll can do what you want. I've followed the advice of the links above and have yet to suffer a food borne illness with making jerky. I'm of the, "better safe than sorry" clan than lives two hollows over.

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## kyratshooter

Rick acording to your "government sources" there is no such thing as jerky that does not need refregeration!  This is why the meat must not go up to "cooking temp".  The dehydratiuon removes the water needed for bacteria growth, the cooking counters that process and sets up the need for refregeration.  Cooked food must be refregerated, dried meat will stay usabe for over a year, fruits 3 years and veggies up to 5 years.  Even my commercial food dehydrator does not get up to 140 degrees.  

I am a bit aprenhensive about taking food preservation advice from the folks that do not want amnyone preserving food long term to start with.  Their temperature limit is a blatent untruth.  

I hate to argeue with such renouned sources but in this case I know they are dead wrong.  These are the same folk that give us $18,000 worth of safety equipment on a $20,000 car! 

None of the primitive cultures had any equipment to detirmine the temp of their drying process, yet they used drying for thousands of years with good results, often with no fire anywhere near the drying racks, espically when drying fish on an industrial scale.  I have made jerky dozens of times without "cooking" the meat and it has been successful on each attempt with no food poisioning or illness.  I have fed whole museum staffs on occasion and never had a problem.

Again I stress that "raw meat" is eaten on a regular basis (sushi, rare steak, steak tartar), on purpose, yet each time the subject of jerky comes up this "cook the meat" argument is thrown about like it was a valid consideration by the same folk that will eat bugs and grubs to prove their point.  and the "prepared by trained professionals" argument is a crock.  At the local resterants the buss boys take turns slicing the fish.

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## Rick

If you wish to argue with multiple sources....so be it. My "cooked" jerky lasts at least six months because I've tested it that long. A lot of folks on here make jerky in the oven at the lowest setting, which on most is 150F IF the thermostat is correct. My oven runs a little hotter so by separate oven thermometer I know my lowest setting is 175F. As I said, do what you want. I'm a fully paid member of the "better safe than sorry" clan.

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## crashdive123

It's been my experience that homemade jerky has a shelf life of about a week.......well.......at least there were no specimens to test after a week. :Innocent:

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## hunter63

I thought it was to eat today....have no referance to it lasting any length of time.

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## rockriver

> It's been my experience that homemade jerky has a shelf life of about a week.......well.......at least there were no specimens to test after a week.


This has been my experience as well.  I devestate my supply plenty on my own, but the kids are like wolves on raw meat.  Even my hiding places have been compromised.

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## wholsomback

Properly jerking the meat is the main step to prohibit the growth of bacteria and smoking keeps bugs away and enhances flavor,black pepper in the old days was also a way to keep alot of the animals out of it.I make 5 pounds of venison jerky and the kids have it gone in a week,my problem too I never get enough,they have all my hiding places too.

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## JPGreco

The government is just covering its ***, that's all.  Any institution, for the most part, is going to tell you the *safest* way to do things.  Same reason restaurants have warnings about consuming *under cooked* meats.  I eat steak medium, which has its center below the 160 degree mark (somewhere around 140).  I've also gotten food poisoning from chicken before, which was supposedly cooked to the 160 degree mark.  So based on experience, I've had better luck with the so called unsafe foods.

The drying process will kill worms cause they need moisture to live.  It will also kill off and inhibit future growth of bacteria for the same reason.

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## RandyRhoads

But what about worm eggs? If I was to dry out some raccoon without cooking you don't believe a rouge egg that landed on the meat while cleaning would infect me?

Believe me I want to do it, I just want to get the facts and learn as much as I can before I do.

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## Cast-Iron

Howdy folks! I'm new to this board but I do have some experience with this topic.  

I have enjoyed dried venison (white tail deer) jerky for 40+ years.  I remember watching my grandmother on many occasions as she prepared it, and have tried to repeat her methods with modest success.  

Note: This process should be safe for any type of venison or lean beef, but I would not recommend it for poultry, swine, or any member of the rodent family because of possible trichinella/salmonella contamination.  I know of people who use smokers, ovens and dehydrators and they all work too.    

OMA'S CLOTHES LINE JERKY

I recommend starting with a modest first batch so you can then tweak it to your particular tastes if needed.  

Take 1-2 pounds of lean venison cut into roughly 3/4 X 3/4 or larger strips of whatever length you desire.  

Place into a saltwater brine and soak overnight (the brine is salty enough when it will float an egg).

Remove from brine solution and rinse well.  

Use a sterile large craft-type sewing needle, string the meat thru one end with a cotton twine and place the meat strips onto the twine (allow enough length to seperate the pieces and for tying up the ends). 

Now generously coat the meat with black pepper & hang outside in full sun for 1-3 days until pieces are firm and dry to the touch. The dryer the better but I usually start "sampling" on day 2.  

In Texas this method works best on sunny cool days (40-50 F) with low humidity and a light breeze.  You may have to adjust the duration for your conditions.  We seldom have any left after a few days so I can't address the long term shelf-life.  When my Oma made it, she would bag and freeze it if she wanted to store it long term.  I don't know that freezing it was necessary but if I kept it at room temperature I would keep it in a closed container to keep it as dry as possible.  Observe the early drying process to make sure insects aren't contaminating the meat (the pepper should prevent this and the salt act to preserve the meat).

Bon appetit!

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## Rick

Well, I swan. If you're gonna sew it back together why on earth did you cut it up in the first place? Some folks make no sense.

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## Cast-Iron

Maybe I didn't make the point clearly, so here goes my attempt to clarify.  There is no sewing involved!  The needle simply speeds up the process of hanging the meat to dry.  The strips are pierced only once and near an end to keep the meat from folding over on itself during the drying process.  The string provides the medium to suspend the meat in the drying process.  And finally, you slice the meat into strips to reduce the time required to marinate in the brine and dry.  Of course you could skip all these steps and just make sausage.......but that's another topic.

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## Rick

I understood. It was joke. It's a good recipe and a good post.

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## rockriver

So, no fire/smoke required?  I'm really wanting to try this!

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## shiftyer1

Cast-iron,  there is alot of tongue and cheek humor and sarcasm on this board.  Which is one reason I enjoy comin here :Smile:   I also brine and marinade my jerky but I smoke it at a very low temp until almost brittle.  So far nobody has died from it and everybody begs for it.  If I was trying to do it with something other than red meat I would probably be concered.  I use a medium size texas style smoker,  I have also had good success with 10 or twelve charcoal briquets.  It's normally a 2 day affair for me.  I couldn't hang it in the breeze.....too many critters.

People have been salting and smoking meats forever,  including pork.  Think of old fashioned farm smoke houses and curing hams or bacon.  I think people are just too paranoid.....and it seems to be in the last 2 or 3 generations.  Although people also used to cut the moldy spot off cheese and eat what was still good......cheese is different nowdays if it has a spot u just gotta throw it away.

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## Sarge47

Ya'all are making me hungry!    

Cast iron, don't let yer leg come off in Rick's hand, okay?

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## RandyRhoads

> Although people also used to cut the moldy spot off cheese and eat what was still good......cheese is different nowdays if it has a spot u just gotta throw it away.


 Uh oh. I still do this lol. What are the dangers of that.....

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## Cast-Iron

Thanks for the clarifications.  It's hard for me to interpret the intended "tone" of the written word. My paternal grandmother (Oma) was a great individual and an even better cook (I know, I'm biased) . Admittedly, I acted too hastily in defending her recipe.  I'm a left-handed Texas Aggie with Polish heritage who was born with blonde hair.......I'm used to a good ribbing!

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## shiftyer1

Randy.....absolutely none that I know of,  but most folks just throw it and buy new.

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## Winter

Sigh, meat is fine irregardless of all the crap you hear. A brisket, cooked, and left overnight on the porch just needs the fly eggs scraped off and it's fine.

Pork? Trichinosis is gone and has been for 40 yrs. You can eat raw pork just like you can eat raw beef.

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## Rick

Making note never to eat brisket at Winter's house. 

With the advent of more and more folks raising their own animals the trichinosis problem is bound to return. And you can bet wild pork has it. Little porkers in environmentally controlled housing is clean.

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## RandyRhoads

Yeah i'm ok Winter....that's a little much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cysticercosis

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## Cast-Iron

We have a huge feral hog problem here in Texas.  It is not too uncommon to have a deer hunt interrupted by a pack of the critters.  I've bagged a couple of small ones and they made some of the best pork bbq I've ever had.  But I assure you the meat was thorougly cooked to 160 degrees before consumption.  Trichinosis has been virtually eradicated within the domestic swine industry but I assure you is still exists in the feral populations here as well as in other mammals namely members of the rodent family.  There are an estimated 10,000 cases worldwide annually and I don't plan on becomming part of that statistic.
http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html
I spent 8 years perfecting my bbq brisket (professionally) and I'd be happy to explain the basics if there's an interest here.

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## crashdive123

Oh, be assured.....there is always a keen interest in BBQ.

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## Rick

Indeed! We never tire of BBQ porn. 

For those interested in the moldy cheese subject, Just remember that cutting the "mold" off cheese is only removing the fruiting bodies of the mold. The cheese still contains the mycelium which injects enzymes into the cheese to break it down so the mold can use the nutrients to grow. The mycelium typically grows much larger than the fruiting bodies. An analogy might be the root network on a tree is as large as the above ground tree. I'm not suggesting the mycelium is bad for you just explaining that you are still consuming part of the mold unless you are cutting away a lot of the cheese.

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## crashdive123

<snicker, snort> Rick said cutting the cheese.

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## RandyRhoads

Really? I've been studying mycology as a hobby since I was 15, and never heard of this. I thought the mold growing on cheese was the mycellium. Isn't that mold the vegative portion?

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## Rick

The hypha is the vegetative portion of the mold. Collectively, it's the mycelium. Yes, you can see the mycelium but it also extends beyond the surface. That's the string like stuff. In many molds the mycelium is microscopic so the only thing you see are the fruiting bodies.

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## RandyRhoads

I'm familiar with hypae and mycellium, I thought the outside covering such as penecillium on the outside of bread was the mycellium.

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## canid

Let's not forget that in general, you can play russian roulette with food-borne illness all your life. countless generations of our ancestors did exactly that. they also drank untreated water, and some of them wrestled with pleistocene megafauna. they also dies a whole heck of a lot for reasons we might find ridiculous. It is probably safe to assume their priorities were a bit different, and their view of mortal danger was not identical to ours.

my point is, the difference between what you can do in a pinch and what you should do if at all possible to preserve your health is often broad.

Randy: hyphae are the type of cell that a fungus's mycellium (and more, in the higher fungi) is composed of. the colored portion are the mature portions of the colony, with the color caused by the spores, bourne on asci; the type of cell which produced the spores.

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## RandyRhoads

Ok so the colored portion is really just spore covered mycellium. But I still don't understand the fruiting body. What does it look like in this type of ascomycete? A morel produces spores in the asci but still has a noticeable fruiting body.

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## canid

the fruiting body is a conidiophore, which branches off of the hypha, and bears several conidia which each bear several asci. it looks a bit in structure like brocoli, but having only a few or several branches of each stage (conidiophore>conidia>asci). the ascus itself looks something like a transparent pea pod.

http://faculty.clintoncc.suny.edu%2F...%2Ffiles%2Fbio 102%2Fbio 102 lectures%2Ffungi%2Fpenicillium_conidia_X_400.jpg is a micrograph of the structures in penicillium whith what is either a grams stain or gentian violet.

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## canid

it's just hard to conceptualize without a microscope because the fruiting bodies are extremely numerous and microscopic.

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## RandyRhoads

Link didn't work but I think i'm starting to get the picture. The substrate is colonized by mycellium. When it reaches the surface of said substrate like an orange, it produces bunches of tiny microscopic fruiting bodies, which release the spores giving it the color.

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## canid

yeah; aparently vbulletin butchers hyperlinks now. anyway, that's basically it. it's not just when it reaches the surface, though in many fungi that is a large factor (change in co2 concentrations, etc), but also tends to depend on the maturity and nutritional availability to the colony.

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## lefties

i have done it in oven at around 110 degrees bcoz i wanted it dried not baked. Turned out good and im still here.  On a side note,,I live in Philippines where they air dry fish always,,I personally dont know any sick from it.

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## Rick

Air drying has been done for centuries and is still done in a lot of places world wide. The trick is for the food to dry faster than insects can impact it or protect the food from the insects. You'll see a lot of open air drying in Africa, particularly fish, because it dries pretty fast in hot temps. Here in the Midwest, my grandfather air dried fruits but laid a screen over them to keep the flies off of the fruit until it was dried. It all works.

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## canid

yeah; freshness or very controlled processing is definitely key; though i have made my share of jerky from [cringe] commercial beef. when you understand that the cow has been dead for weeks before it even hits the supermarket shelves, that is a good point to see how much safe handling and storage is critical, compared with, say, a fresh kill.

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## lefties

1 shot,,1 kill. Fresh kill that is!!

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## canid

certainly; if it's not a large animal you're hanging and aging.

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## fightergirl

yes as long as it dries before the insects get a hold of it however i prefer to smoke mine over a fire becuase after i have cleaned it i cut into thin slices to smoke either way works just whatever is best for you at that time

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## T1000homesteader@yahoo.ca

primitive dried meat is, in fact, safer than any other meat. In the nineteenth century, dried meat was considered safe and eaten as a staple far more regularly than fresh - interesting truth.  Meats like pork, or beaver, which sometimes carry some fear of trichanosis, are rendered perfectly safe when dried.  I usually do a pre smoke in a tp of the large quarters of a pig or deer, then i hang dry the strips inside over low heat.  enjoy.  dried meat will last for months and months, up to six months in a low humidity environment, and it is always tasty, although it does lose fat content, so the best is to separate the fat, which can also be dried in smaller pieces, to last quite a while, although rancidity must be monitored.

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## Rick

I have to share with you that the user name you chose is probably not a safe one. Spiders run the forum 24x7 looking for email addresses and they've no doubt captured yours. If you want to change it just PM me and we can do it. You may also get some crank emails along with all the spam since anyone on the planet can view it. Having said that, if you are happy with it then so am I.

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## finallyME

> Uh oh. I still do this lol. What are the dangers of that.....


Do you really want to know?  Well, first off, it could make you go bald, or blind.  Your sex drive will diminish, and all your kids will turn stupid.  You also might end up marrying an uggly chick. 

The main problem is that it contains dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO), which is a dangerous chemical found in most poisons and is the main component of acid rain.

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## Rick

Let's examine this closely. 

Bald - There is always Rogain. 
Glasses - Uh, corrective surgery. Hello? 
Sex Drive will diminish - Better living through chemistry.
Kids will turn stupid - Yeah? So? All kids turn stupid at about 7 and finally come out of it around 35. Some a bit later. 
Marrying an ugly chick - She won't leave you and even if she does what have you lost? An ugly chick. 

Sheesh, man. Do I have to 'splain everything?

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## RandyRhoads

Lol Rick. Makes sense.

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## matt47

I make tons of my own version of smoked biltong from wild game down under...It's similar to jerky except it's more practical for hot temps...I marinate the thinly sliced meat in brown vinegar and the pieces are also coated with salt and pepper prior to being marinated...then after 16-24 hrs I usually hang them to smoke for a day or two and then hang up to dry outside under a roof. The trick is to let the air and wind dry out the biltong, not the sun...It doesn't need to be smoked but it helps dry it quicker and imparts that lovely smoke flavor into the meat...Someone here mentioned hanging out in the sun in Texas...I have done that here in subtropical temps in OZ and it has ruined the biltong...the meat literally gets cooked by the sun...not what you want...you dont want to cook the meat...you have to keep it out of the sun, esp at the 45 C + temps you get out at my bush place mid-summer...it also dries more consistently that way as well when kept under a roof/shade...I have made over 20 pounds of biltong this way and there is no electricity at my bush place so it's how I keep meat for longer than the 3 days that fresh meat lasts out there.

I love biltong, it's my no. 1 staple...along with tallow of course

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## Northern Horseman

> although it does lose fat content, so the best is to separate the fat, which can also be dried in smaller pieces, to last quite a while, although rancidity must be monitored.


Another option for the excess fat if your a homesteader, is to make a betty lamp to get some light from that extra fat.

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## Rick

Matt - I'm unfamiliar with the term brown vinegar. Is it a Balsamic vinegar or Apple Cider vinegar that you are using?

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## matt47

In OZ it's just labeled "brown vinegar" but I think another name for it is "Malt vinegar"

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## Rick

Ah ha! Thank you.

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## finallyME

Soaking meat in vinegar is "cooking" it in a way.  In Europe, "pickled herring" is a well liked dish that is just raw herring soaked in vinegar.  The vinegar kills anything that would grow on it.  Tartar is also soaked in vinegar.

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## finallyME

> Let's examine this closely. 
> 
> Bald - There is always Rogain. 
> Glasses - Uh, corrective surgery. Hello? 
> Sex Drive will diminish - Better living through chemistry.
> Kids will turn stupid - Yeah? So? All kids turn stupid at about 7 and finally come out of it around 35. Some a bit later. 
> Marrying an ugly chick - She won't leave you and even if she does what have you lost? An ugly chick. 
> 
> Sheesh, man. Do I have to 'splain everything?


Don't forget, if you are blind, an ugly chick isn't really a problem.

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## Rick

Oh, no. That will never work. Your friends will always want to help you out. 

"Dude, you know we're buddies, right?"
"Are you going to tell me she's ugly?"
"Well, yeah."
"But she can stand facing a wall and NOT touch her elbows to the wall."
"That's true. I see your point." 
"I can't. I'm blind. Remember?" 
"Sorry."

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## Rick

I wonder how many of you guys just tried to touch your elbows to the wall......Too funny.

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## finallyME

You really crack yourself up, don't you Rick.  :Smile:

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## Rick

Yeah....but you tried to touch your elbows to the wall anyway, didn't you? Go on admit it.

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## Wildthang

> Let's examine this closely. 
> 
> Bald - There is always Rogain. 
> Glasses - Uh, corrective surgery. Hello? 
> Sex Drive will diminish - Better living through chemistry.
> Kids will turn stupid - Yeah? So? All kids turn stupid at about 7 and finally come out of it around 35. Some a bit later. 
> Marrying an ugly chick - She won't leave you and even if she does what have you lost? An ugly chick. 
> 
> Sheesh, man. Do I have to 'splain everything?


What happens when you mix rogain and viagra? 

You get Don King hair :Eek2:

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## Seniorman

Here is a very interesting video on "drying" made by a woodsman named "Barton," who lives in Quebec, Canada.  His method seems to work quite well.  He uses beef in a marinade of his own concoction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5OML...OiNrxFVTfkE%3D

S.M.

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## Thaddius Bickerton

I have cut the mold off cheese for all my life.

Jerky / smoked meat is so different that I almost think every individual does it a bit different.

I have just dried it after brineing / peppering it.

I have made it in the oven with various rubs / maranades

I have just sliced it thin, and hung it in the smoke house with the other hams and bacon.  (spiced as possible with what was available.  usually salted since I try to keep a lot of salt around.  To much trouble to boil it out of a salt lick or go to the ocean to get it come hard times and way to cheap not to have 10 barrels of it put up. -  I stocked up from Akzo several years ago getting plain salt pellets without additives used for salting roads and side walks.  Look kind of like peanuts in the shell be sure you get ones without additives)

The best to my taste is brined / maranaded, then dry rubbed, then put in the smoker for a few days.

Plain peppered and dried is almost like eating sawdust.  (I have to put it in a stew pot and boil it with things to get any taste going, but year old stuff is still edible.)  The plain dried stuff pounded and mixed with suet and berrys into pemmican is a powerful trail food, but barely edible unless stewed with other things.

For experiment I have camped with just dried meat, pemmican, and parched corn.  It will keep you alive, but it is hard on modern digestive systems, one way or the other.  (keep a laxative and a bottle of immodium with me at all times.)

If one gets horrible montezumas revenge dysentary, blackberry root tea usually stops it up.

Worst cast you have to eat powdered chalk by the cup full or powdered sawdust from a high tannic acid source.  (never have been that bad, but old medecine woman from the hills knowledge needs to be passed on.)

Arrowroot tea will usually loosen things up, but I find a couple glasses of apple cider work for me usually.  Probably other non citrus fruits also.

Anyway,  I have never had a direct sickness related to "contaminated" meat.  Just don't expect dried jerk to taste like bucan or smoked or even oven made jerky.  It is dry.  and mostly tasteless with a texture like sawdust / wood to my taste buds.

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## Rick

> I have never had a direct sickness related to "contaminated" meat.


That you know of. Since most cases of food poisoning resemble the flu many folks mistake it for the latter.

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## Thaddius Bickerton

> That you know of. Since most cases of food poisoning resemble the flu many folks mistake it for the latter.


Aye,  that I know of.

what I should have said is so far nothing i have done has led me to stop making or eating jerky in several different ways, and I'm still here to type about it  :-)

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## Rick

Indeed. I was just munching on some I made this past week-end. This batch doesn't appear to be a test batch for longevity. The size of the finished product seems to be dwindling by the day.

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## Durtyoleman

Anyone here have any experience making rabbit jerky? Ran a handfull down on the web but wondered if any of you had tried it and what the results were. I have a half dozen roasters that I am going to be slaughtering shortly and would like to preserve some till the next batch get up to size. Wish I could can some but not set up for it.
Thanx,
D.O.M.

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## Rick

I do not have any experience with rabbit. However, rabbit is a very lean meat. It should jerky just fine.

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## Wildthang

So what is the difference between primative jerky, and modern jerky, it sort of all sounds primative to me. Or is modern jerky the kind you get in bags at the store?
Inquiring minds want to know :Confused1:

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## Rick

Mostly in how you do it would be my answer. I use an electric dehydrator as opposed to a smoke rack or sun dried.

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## Wildthang

I try not to carry jerky because of the jerky squatch :Scared: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Q-hVJiv_E

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## Sparky93

You guys lost me with the mold talk lol

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## Durtyoleman

Well I did the rabbit jerky in my oven and I am ticked! I only did three rabbits and should have done the whole half dozen...the jerky was killer but barely filled a single ziplock...Need more and bigger rabbits next time.  For any interested I used worsteschire, garlic powder, garden fresh cayenne, sea salt, mesquite liquid smoke and southern comfort to marinade it overnight. It took less time than I expected to dry but it was my first attempt at oven drying. 

D.O.M.

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## Rick

What?! You wasted SC on jerky. Oh the humanity!

It's kind of amazing how little is left of stuff when you remove the water. I'm glad it turned out good.

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## Durtyoleman

The splash of SoCo was not enough for a good drink but did add a bit of sweet to all the sharp. I prefer Jack single barrel as a sipper.  Wish I had the teeth I had when I was younger, I'd enjoy jerkey more and make it more often...lol
D.O.M.

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## Rick

You can borrow my teeth if it will help. You can chew for a while and I'll chew for a while. Neither of us will get too tired that way.

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## crashdive123

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

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## Durtyoleman

Afraid I would too but thanks for the generous offer...LOL I think I'll just let it soften a bit and chew slowly...got a few left.

D.O.M.

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## Rick

Well if you're gonna throw up you ain't usin' my teeth.

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## waytoomedicated

so this is my first post ever on this site so bear with me
I am a montana native born in 1991 and have hunted and fished all over this state and have made plenty of jerky from plenty of delicious critters and have yet to find someone to teach me to make pemmican.  I know it requires an amount of dried or smoked meat and about half that amount of animal fat but from there I am lost.  If this is in another forum i apoplogize but seemed like a great place as any to start!

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## Eastree

> so this is my first post ever on this site so bear with me
> I am a montana native born in 1991 and have hunted and fished all over this state and have made plenty of jerky from plenty of delicious critters and have yet to find someone to teach me to make pemmican.  I know it requires an amount of dried or smoked meat and about half that amount of animal fat but from there I am lost.  If this is in another forum i apoplogize but seemed like a great place as any to start!


This may help.
http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...light=pemmican

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## waytoomedicated

groovy!!  thank you very much Eastree!

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## MountanWolf

Hey!

Just came home from weekend camping trip with friends where we among other things dried some meat and i just wanted to shrae some photos:

We build a small tripod and lashed it with Together Pine roots.
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The tripod was coverd with Fern at all times.


Well those are the only photos i've got  :Frown: 

Hope you enjoyed it.

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## crashdive123

Well done.  When should we all expect our samples to arrive?

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## MountanWolf

Doubt this will last will last till i get to post office  :Smile:

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## Celticwarrior

I've been making jerky for decades now. Never had a single batch even get moldy, much less try to kill me with bacteria or other nasties. I know that the USDA, CDC and every one of the various government agencies now swear to you on their grandmothers' eyeballs that if you don't fully cook meat, the pathogens inside will stay around and likely kill you. I don't doubt that somewhere, somehow, that has happened before. BUT, I can tell you that primitive cultures have been hanging and drying meat, without modern protections, for hundreds of thousands of years, and the species has survived. I can tell you that the Mongols and Tartars used to put raw meat under their SADDLES for days or weeks at a time, with NO protection, to tenderize it before eating it (hense "steak Tartar"). I can tell you that as polluted as FISH are with worms and parasites, people to this day eat tons of jerked, dried, and smoked salmon and trout without dying, and judging by the SUSHI craze that still persists since the 90's, people eat RAW FISH all the time and still don't die from parasites (well, mostly!). I have used the machines to dry meat and it worked well enough. I have dried jerky in a gas oven with only the pilot light and it turned out ok too. I usually actually brine and season the thinest strips I can make and smoke the crap out of them in my smokehouse, drying them the way our ancestors did before electricity. If it is good enough for bacon or hams, it's good enough for beef or venison, I think. As far as I know, the pathogens and parasites they are worried about can't survive the low moisture environment created by the jerking process. It has nothing to do with heat, it has everything to do with drying the buggers out so they can't maintain cell integrity. Bugs, eggs, microbes, etc. all need water to live, and if you dry them out, they pretty much all die (yeast being an exception to that rule, obviously).

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## Rick

The problem comes from incomplete drying.

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## Celticwarrior

Heh, patience will be rewarded. Never rush perfection.

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## Rick

I keep telling my wife that and she keeps nagging at me to get stuff done.

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## Mischief

I have approx 3 oz left from 4lbs of jerk Montana bison meat sent to me 3 years ago,still fine just a tad bit more chewy.

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