Deer Jerky

Living out in the middle of nowhere, I stock up on a lot of food when we do go shopping with the exception of meat.  I usually have a freezer full of meat.  There is always a decent supply of fish and deer meat.  I have never been deer hunting to shoot a deer, but I usually get a deer from somebody that wants to go out hunting but does not want to clean the deer.  We get some beef from different people that are butchering a cow and need to clean out their old stock. 

Needless to say, I end up with a good amount of meat and some of it needs to be used up pretty quickly.  I have found a way to quickly use up my old meat so it does not go to waste.  I can either grind it up into burger, or turn it into jerky.

This weekend I opted for the latter and made 2 batches of jerky.  I started the first batch Friday night.  I grabbed an old roast we had just gotten from somebody.  I sliced it up and trimmed off the fat.  I then placed it into one of my favorite jerky marinades that consists of water, viniger, salsa, oyster sauce, liquid smoke, season salt, barbecue seasoning, garlic salt, chili powder, onion powder, and pepper.  I add a lot of seasonings and salts. 

That night I had dreams about tasting the jerky.  The next morning I put the strips on the dehydrator and let it do it's job.  A few hours later the jerky was done and it was great.  That night, I sliced up a hind quarter of a deer to do the same thing.  This time I let it marinade for a couple days.  Last night I made 2 batches out of the hind quarter.  It was not quite as flavorful as the beef since I had sliced it a little thicker, but it still got the nod of approval from my 6 year old. 

He had gotten into the beef jerky the other night and ate a whole zip lock bag full.  I had shared a lot of it with other people and had not gotten to eat a lot myself, so I was a little dissapointed because it was really good.  Last night when I went to put the meat on the dehydrator I realized I had not taken the beef jerky off one of the racks.  I still had a zip lock bag of beef jerky.  I hid it from the kids.  They can munch on the deer jerky.

I have another hind quarter to cut up tonight that my brother in law gave me to make into jerky, as long as he gets some. 

Another reason I started this jerky making marathon is to clean out some larger meat out of the freezer to make room for another deer.  Dad's neighbor has a tag to fill and does not want to clean the deer so he is going to shoot one, tag it, and give it to me.  As soon as he shoots it, I will make a trip up North to skin it, process it and bring it back.  A deer is definately worth 8 hours of drive time.

Since I shared the jerky with others, some of them are asking me if I want more meat to turn into jerky.  Who am I to say no?