# primitive cooking/jerky making



## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

I am interested in learning to make jerky the traditional way the native Americans made jerky. I found some clips on you tube and it seems easy enough, but I had a question.

Some people left the meat above a smoking fire in the sun light the whole time and one guy said that the meat needed to be smoked for a few hours before taking the meat rack away from the fire and leaving it in the heat of the sun for a few days.

So, does the meat need to remain in smoke the the whole time or is the meat smoked for a segment of the process and then left in the sun to dry without smoke? 


Another interesting thing one of the guys did was dress a small animal and then make jerky from the whole animal bones and all, then he made soup with the jerkied carcass. Ever hear of this?


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## Raven12 (Mar 5, 2011)

Smokehouses? I have been reading up on the process and fascinated by it since I was a child and read the Laura Ingalls books. No joke.


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

No just salt and pepper good, smoke it good for an hour or so and dry in the sun. I always did it (drying) on the roof when I was a kid.


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

Yes, on the small animals. And, fish too. They all make really good broth.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

The smoke isn't necessary to dry the meat. The smoke is to keep the flies off the meat while it is drying.

So, how long you leave the meat in the smoke is going to depend upon how bad the flies are.


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## Cabin Fever (May 10, 2002)

oregon woodsmok said:


> The smoke isn't necessary to dry the meat. The smoke is to keep the flies off the meat while it is drying.
> 
> So, how long you leave the meat in the smoke is going to depend upon how bad the flies are.


Ditto

You could also consider make drying racks out of window screen to keep the flies off. However, the meat would dry slower in these racks due to shading. Consequently, I'd initially dry with smoke and then transfer to the screen racks in the sun.


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## KIT.S (Oct 8, 2008)

Hmmm, we dry fruit inside a closed car in the sunshine. Fruit makes the car smell good, onions not so much. Meat might be strange too. Our weather is pretty damp, so an enclosed place in the sunshine works better for us.
Kit


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## Raven12 (Mar 5, 2011)

oregon woodsmok said:


> The smoke isn't necessary to dry the meat. The smoke is to keep the flies off the meat while it is drying.



Isn't it also used to somewhat flavor the meat? When I lived down South the farmers would use a certain type of wood with the Ham.


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## logbuilder (Jan 31, 2006)

Have you ever tried biltong as an alternative to jerkey? It doesn't require a fire.

Here is a biltong recipe:

Mark Blumberg's South African Biltong Recipe Page


Here is general info on biltong:

Biltong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Raven, there was an old timer on youtube who cold smokes his butchered pigs. The guy said he had a piece of pig hanging in that shack for seven years and he was eating off of it. He said it was still good.

One thing that is a road block in my mind when I hear about old preservation methods that seem to work so well and that need no energy to store is, if they really do work that well why the heck are modern people doing things the hard and costly way when they could just smoke meat? If I really can smoke a pig and leave it hanging in my smoke shack for seven years and it still taste good and still has not gone bad then why the heck would I go buy crappy meat at the store that is full of red dyes and junk, and why would anyone go buy that stuff. 

If it takes six to eight months to raise a pig to slaughter and just one smoked pig can modestly feed a family for a year or more, people could have so much abundance in their families. A family that raises two pigs every year and smokes them I would think would have their provision stores overflowing after a few years of build up has accumilated.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Ok, so....Smoke is not needed to dry the meat, smoke is needed to keep the bugs off the meat so they do not spoil it. If there are not many bugs about, the meat can be smoked for a period of time and then set in the sun without smoke. Does that sound right?

One thing one of the guys said was that once the meat has been smoked enough the bugs will not want to go near the meat. So, while it is out in the sun the smell of the smoke chases the bugs away. Does that sound right to you folks?


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

I hate to burst your thought but Jerky is only dried meat and does not need any smoke at all but smoke will give it some flavor. If you smoke a hog it is called smoked meat and will not keep long at all with our refrigeration. If you Cure the meat then smoke it you can keep it for up to 12 years without refrigeration. True Jerky will keep for about 2 or 3 month with out refrigeration because it will attract moisture from the air and that will cause it to become rancid.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Cured meat is what I was thinking of when i was mentioning the old timer with the ham hanging in his shack for seven years. He salted it first then cold smoked it.


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

Most of the flavor in your jerky will come from your marinade.


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

City Bound said:


> Cured meat is what I was thinking of when i was mentioning the old timer with the ham hanging in his shack for seven years. He salted it first then cold smoked it.


You can either sure it with salt or sugar cure the smoke only gives it flavor. What you are really doing is to dry the meat with the cure and if kept dry can hang for at least 12 years. That is called aging the meat and the best Ham is 12 years old. When you use the ham you first use soapy water on it with a brush then rinse it then cook it.


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## gunseller (Feb 20, 2010)

Old time jerly is made without salt, pepper, marinade or anything. As stated smoke was just to keep the flys off while it drys. If it was going to be kept for a long time it was crushed and mixed with fat to form pemacan. And no there is not dried fruit mixed into it. It is just jerky and fat. You ask how to make old time jerky so smoke enough to keep flys off. If no flys there is no reason to smoke. When the meat is marinaded, salt added or anything else it is a modern mix to make snacks.
Steve


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Steve have you ever eaten Pemacan? What does it taste like.

I am curious to taste it but the Pemacan for sale on the net is a little expensive.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

If you take a big chunk of meat and cure it, how does the center of the meat not spoil? Does the salt draw out moisture deep into the center of a 12 inch thick chunk of meat?


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

by the way, thank you all for your help.


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

Meat Dryer | The Sifford Sojournal

CB Check out this drying rack / frame


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

Cowgirl's Country Life: Building a cold smoker (smokehouse)

An awesome smoke house that I saved from HT thread


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

National Center for Home Food Preservation | How Do I? Cure & Smoke


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

thirtyfivebyninety: Hearth

Some racks for woodstove


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

thank you vickie


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Vickie that screened in meet drying rack is a good idea.

I saw a chinese family curing meat on their back porch. The meet was just hanging for the porch roof from a string. i wonder if that works. There was footage of chinese people curing ham in china and they let the flys go on it, they did not care. Then they let a mold grow on it, the mold was part of the process.


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## gunseller (Feb 20, 2010)

City Bound Yes I have eaten pemacan. In fact there are several pounds about 20 feet from where I sit. To me the taste is a lot like high quality beef. It can be eaten as is but I believe most of the time a chunk was put into a soup or stew.
Steve


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## Old Vet (Oct 15, 2006)

City Bound said:


> If you take a big chunk of meat and cure it, how does the center of the meat not spoil? Does the salt draw out moisture deep into the center of a 12 inch thick chunk of meat?


When you cure meat you get all of the moisture out of it. That may mean 3 or 4 month of either salt or sugar cure that must be turned at least every week. You can cure a large ham that way. The ticker slices take more time. The best way is to cut all joints out of the meat since they will have more fluid in them.


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

I have tried both meat and fruit sun drying here CB and between bugs and humidity leading to mold I had a lot of problems . I gave up on fruit but would like to make a dehydrator type rack for on the wood stove and try again. Jerky I do in the oven.
Being on a farm there are just to many flies


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Vickie, I was thinking that you could run that stove in your shed in the summer, hang some racks, lay out some second hand screens with herbs and veg on it, and then close up the shed and let it heat up. That shed would be a massive dehydrator and the heat of the stove would not bother you because it is outside.

Humidity gets my sun dried herbs also. The bad thing is that the damp and the hunidity comes in the house on those bad days so I can not even bring it indoors. Another bad thing is that the herbs never seem to dry right after they have slightly rehydrated by the damp and the hunidity so most of it get damaged.


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## Vickie44 (Jul 27, 2010)

Thats a really good idea !


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

city i want to post video for you but the guy cusses a lot and i am not sure angie or chuck wants to use the ball bat on my head today.i will send you a link by PM for others wanting it search....TheWildNorth on youtube titled Moose Meat In The SmokeShack

p.s. i think its plain silly we cant post educational stuff even though maker cusses.....oh well i would rather learn something than not.the kids hear worse in school.so i will play by the rules as best i can here since chuck owns it.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

elk, great video. that guy is colorful and you are right he does cuss too much.


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## vicker (Jul 11, 2003)

Another good place is in the rafters under your roof or in the attic.


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## City Bound (Jan 24, 2009)

Vicker, I was reading a book about different homes all over the world and it was interesting that the people in Romania that live in those beautiful hand crafted wood homes store there meat and other goods in the attic and they vent the smoke from the fire place into the attic not above the roof. The smoke fills the attic and vents out from the side walls and a little through the thatch roof. 

Do not ask me how that does not start a fire because I do not know. The idea is cleaver though. The stored food goods are constantly protected from bugs and rodents from the smoke.


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