I like to keep Beef Jerky around as an emergency snack when traveling, or if I just run out of gas in the afternoon.  It’s a nice portable, high protein snack.  The problem is that most beef jerky contains gluten, soy, sugar or other unidentifiable compounds.  These are all substances that I am trying to avoid, so I decided to try making beef jerky with our dehydrator.

I used a recipe that I found here:  http://www.primal-palate.com/2011/01/beef-jerky.html

I purchased a nice looking, grass fed London Broil that was locally raised.  It weighed 1.9 lbs.  First, I sliced the London Broil as thinly as I could against the grain.

Once that was done, I prepared a marinade using 1 cup coconut aminos and 3-4 cloves of minced  garlic.

I let the meat marinate in the refrigerator for 24 hours.  Then I laid it out on the dehydrator trays.  Pat the pieces dry before laying on the trays.  Make sure nothing is overlapping.  I like Peppered Beef Jerky, so I coarsely ground black pepper over all the meat before drying.

I had enough meat to load 4 of the  dehydrator trays.  Once all the trays were loaded, they went into the dehydrator at the highest setting (145 F) to dry.

After 2 1/2 hours I opened up the dehydrator and checked the meat to see how it was doing.  I removed all the pieces that were dry.  I continued to check every 20-30 minutes until all of the meat was dry.

It took about 4 hours for all the meat to finish drying.  The finished beef jerky weighed 1 pound.

This Beef Jerky tastes FABULOUS!  I have been spoiled.  I will never be able to go back to store bought beef jerky.  TMOTH (The Man of the House) is pleased that I have found another use for the dehydrator.  It’s generally been an under-utilized piece of equipment at our house.