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I've never eaten beef jerkey before, what's a good commercial variety so I can give it a go and see if I like it?
 
Good commercial jerky is hard to find, most of the jerky is OK but n ot great.

Nothing beats the home made stuff. :beerbang:
 
This guy in wollongong opened up on a little side street a jerky SHOP! i thought for sure the dude would go out of business but he's been going for about a year now and business seems to be expanding. when i first tried it it was remarkable how close to the homemade product it was. i yakked to him for a bit and he has been a bit of a drifter and lived up in NT where indonesians taught him how to dry fish.
i run a snack machine at work and we go through a fair bit of his product. the pepper is awesome, smokey pretty good ( he uses smoke essence tho ) the original a bit plain IMO and he has just started a chili varitey which for chili heads like me unfortunatly failed to raise a tingle, but still very good.
He mainly services the local area, but does get out to ute musters and the like occasionally.
His shop is
Aussie Battler Jerky

shits all over the (is it nobbys that is the worst) mass produced vareties!

no aff etc. other than being a customer... :p
 
This guy in wollongong opened up on a little side street a jerky SHOP! i thought for sure the dude would go out of business but he's been going for about a year now and business seems to be expanding. when i first tried it it was remarkable how close to the homemade product it was. i yakked to him for a bit and he has been a bit of a drifter and lived up in NT where indonesians taught him how to dry fish.
i run a snack machine at work and we go through a fair bit of his product. the pepper is awesome, smokey pretty good ( he uses smoke essence tho ) the original a bit plain IMO and he has just started a chili varitey which for chili heads like me unfortunatly failed to raise a tingle, but still very good.
He mainly services the local area, but does get out to ute musters and the like occasionally.
His shop is
Aussie Battler Jerky

shits all over the (is it nobbys that is the worst) mass produced vareties!

no aff etc. other than being a customer... :p

I'm really blown away by that, who would have thought a jerky shop would have a big enough turn over to survive, Best of luck to him. I have a butcher near me who makes and sells jerky, and it is divine, but at $69 per kilo, a bit of a luxury.

cheers

Browndog
 
Thats what blows me out too, his prices are reasonable! $3 for 25g of $5 for 50g. if you bulk buy he takes care of you too..
 
Has anyone tried the 'pork floss' in the asian supermarkets?

Ive tried the pork jerky in Asian Supermarkets not sure if that is what you mean.... I like it... But Merc looks a lot better!

I go through fazes of being addicted to jerky... my partner had a little dable in making it... but if I do eat I usually go Road Kill or Bull Bar! I don't like Nobbies either similar to Jack Linx.
 
After having a hankering for some Jerky the other day at supermarket I saw some kosher biltong. done. but at $65per kg (a pack is only $5) i thought bugger that im making my own (i still bought and ate it though)

so put down my first effort last night.

1.2kg corned silverside (all fat and sinew trimmed)
4tbs Ketchup Manis (sweet indonesian soy)
1tbs regular soy sauce
5 tbs whistshire sauce
1 tbs tomato sauce
1tbs honey
1-2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tsp powdered garlic
1-2 tsp ginger powder
1-2 tsp dried ground chilli
1 tsp cayanne pepper
1 tsp middle eastern spice mix
1 splash of white vinager from a jar of pickled onions.

A few too many flavours i think. Oh well. Its still marinating and will cook it tonight once im home. post pics tomorrow.

Edit: Im thinking an quasi Aussie Jerky for my next batch. Rosemary, BBQ sauce, some native pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) or native pepperberry and some lemon myrtle.
 
After having a hankering for some Jerky the other day at supermarket I saw some kosher biltong. done. but at $65per kg (a pack is only $5) i thought bugger that im making my own (i still bought and ate it though)

so put down my first effort last night.

1.2kg corned silverside (all fat and sinew trimmed)
4tbs Ketchup Manis (sweet indonesian soy)
1tbs regular soy sauce
5 tbs whistshire sauce
1 tbs tomato sauce
1tbs honey
1-2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tsp powdered garlic
1-2 tsp ginger powder
1-2 tsp dried ground chilli
1 tsp cayanne pepper
1 tsp middle eastern spice mix
1 splash of white vinager from a jar of pickled onions.

A few too many flavours i think. Oh well. Its still marinating and will cook it tonight once im home. post pics tomorrow.

Edit: Im thinking an quasi Aussie Jerky for my next batch. Rosemary, BBQ sauce, some native pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) or native pepperberry and some lemon myrtle.



More honey.

The last couple of batchs I've done I've been adding more & more honey. Loves the flavour that it leaves :icon_drool2:
 
well after 48hrs marinating (I couldnt get it on the night before), my first batch is done. Half got extra chilli flakes on them and the other half plain.
IMG_0012.jpg
my oven doesnt have any temp measurement under 150C so it was a bit hit and miss. 4 hours in the oven. I recon the oven was too hot as some bits are a bit dried out but dried out too fast i think.

good flavours. lovely deep chilli flavour (not heat) from the cayenne pepper. I gave some to my 2yr old (non chilli flakes) and she loved it. So a success.

as you can see though a standard portion of corned silverside/beef doesnt make a lot of jerky, but its a lot cheaper and tastes better.

more honey huh cracka? i'll give it a bang and i dont think this lot will last long.
 
Ive tried the pork jerky in Asian Supermarkets not sure if that is what you mean.... I like it... But Merc looks a lot better!

One eats pork floss just like any other snack. It's not bad, but slightly messier to eat than jerky.

Sorry to be so slow to post back on trying Merc's recipe... I tried the pork recipe and it's a bit dull.

My first couple of outings was with pickled pork, both bone in and deboned. About $3.99 a kilo at the moment.

There are legs of roasting pork around at the moment to be had for about $4.99 per kilo, so tried that. Boning them out is a skill that I've just about lost, so there was a reasonable amount of meat lost (350g?) to my crap knife work but that ended up in stir fries as it was too small to sit on the oven racks. Kept the skin for making giant crackling. :)

Here's what I adapted Merc's recipe into:
* 1.5 cups light soy
* 4 tablespoons Sambal Oelek
* 2 tablespoons Sambal Rujak
* 1 tablespoon peanut butter
* 4 teaspoons Indian chilli powder
* 2 teaspoons Chinese Five Spice Powder
* 2 cloves very finely chopped fresh garlic

80C in the oven for 4 - 5 hours, fan forced mode, door closed.

End result was an initial sweetish taste, followed by slight chilli flavour (sambal oelek), rounding up to a warmer building chilli taste (Indian chilli powder) and slight salt finish.

The tamari was ditched as the saltiness of it, combined with pickled or corned meats, became overly salty in my opinion and reduced the flavour of the other ingredients. YMMV, etc. The peanut butter was also cut back as the flavour was too pronounced unless the product was aged > 3 days. The Five Spice Powder is a very typical addition to a lot of southern Chinese pork dishes as it adds some more harmony to the flavours.

Sambal Rujak is pretty much a thick, sweet, fruity paste. It's usually used in Indonesian cuisine for dipping fruit, among other things. It has a nice complex flavour, balances the chilli and gives some fruitiness for less than a mango. About $2.50 at your local Asian supermarket.

If you want to 'oriental it up' a touch more, cut the soy sauce back to 1 cup and add half a cup of Chinese cooking wine (Shao Xing) and a broken star anise (aniseed taste - don't overdo it) to the marinade. It would need a day at least to get into the meat a bit. You could also try adding a few centimetres of cinammon stick, broken. Don't overdo the cinammon in this combination or it will taste blech.

For an added dimension, you could try adding Chinese cooking spirit (Mizhiu / Mijiu, around 40%ABV) as about half a cup. If you're buying this one, the prices range from about $2 to $15 or more. The cheapest ones are heavily salted to prevent it being taxed as alcohol or drunk as alcohol instead of cooking. I recommend the more expensive unsalted one (clear bottle, red and white label with black text, clear contents) as it comes closer in taste and fragrance to Moutai (Chinese 50%++ firewater, $85 per bottle) but more slightly 'floral' (if fermented distilled rice spirit can be floral) and cheaper.

When it comes to garlic, fresh is best. Powder is a very poor substitue, as is garlic through a garlic press. Relegate that thing to the bin and do it with a knife - it's not hard - and the stinky fingers will remind you and everyone else that you can cook. :)

Cheers - Fermented.
 
After having a hankering for some Jerky the other day at supermarket I saw some kosher biltong. done. but at $65per kg (a pack is only $5) i thought bugger that im making my own (i still bought and ate it though)

so put down my first effort last night.

1.2kg corned silverside (all fat and sinew trimmed)
4tbs Ketchup Manis (sweet indonesian soy)
1tbs regular soy sauce
5 tbs whistshire sauce
1 tbs tomato sauce
1tbs honey
1-2 tsp ground cumin
1-2 tsp powdered garlic
1-2 tsp ginger powder
1-2 tsp dried ground chilli
1 tsp cayanne pepper
1 tsp middle eastern spice mix
1 splash of white vinager from a jar of pickled onions.

A few too many flavours i think. Oh well. Its still marinating and will cook it tonight once im home. post pics tomorrow.

Edit: Im thinking an quasi Aussie Jerky for my next batch. Rosemary, BBQ sauce, some native pepper (Tasmannia lanceolata) or native pepperberry and some lemon myrtle.

The native pepperberry is great, slightly sweet - you can buy it freeze dried or air dried and one is hotter than the other but at the moment I cant remember which - actually : the freeze dried pepper berries are fruitier and have much less heat than the air dried pepper berries. Also you could use Mountain Pepperleaf powder as that has a nice heat to it as well as fragrance etc - check out: http://www.herbies.com.au/ it has every herb/spice under the sun and they deliver.

Fermented sorry to hear you thought my recipe dull - each to their own and my wife loves it so it works for me.

I agree about the saltiness so maybe I will cut back on that (or soak the meat in water for 20 minutes) and at first I thought the peanut butter was a bit much but as the jerky is kinda based on the whole satay thing I reckon it works. I am looking forward to getting my hands on some sambal rujak as that sounds real interesting! Thanks for the feed back as all of it is a work in progress. Onward and upward.

Oh Citymorgue buy an oven or BBq temp gauge - less than $10 bucks and they do the job.

Cheers
 
I didn't know you were heading in the satay direction...

If anything, peanut butter overload in satay is an Aussie / Western thing. To get it tasting more 'authentic' (for what it's worth), you could consider tamarind paste (sourness) with the sambal oelek and some belachan... have you speaking Bahasa Melayu in no time, mate. :) Merc's Satay Shop Sdn Bhd? Sound OK for you? :D

I didn't mean to be impolite by saying 'dull'. I'm just more accustomed to Indo / Malay / Southern Chinese flavours so the original pork recipe didn't have that kick to which I am accustomed. That said, a percentage of that batch was sprinkled with a combo of roasted dried chillies which were ground with Szechuan pepper... kick accomplished... two kinds of fragrant hotness. :D

Nonetheless, a work in progress.

Have a good one.

Cheers - Fermented.


PS... Anyone want some drinking snack recipes from the deep south of China? Some ingredients include stuff most Aussies wouldn't eat, such as chicken giblets and some other unmentionables. Sounds not so good, tastes divine. Let me know so I don't put anyone off their food. :D F.
 
I didn't know you were heading in the satay direction...

If anything, peanut butter overload in satay is an Aussie / Western thing. To get it tasting more 'authentic' (for what it's worth), you could consider tamarind paste (sourness) with the sambal oelek and some belachan... have you speaking Bahasa Melayu in no time, mate. :) Merc's Satay Shop Sdn Bhd? Sound OK for you? :D

I didn't mean to be impolite by saying 'dull'. I'm just more accustomed to Indo / Malay / Southern Chinese flavours so the original pork recipe didn't have that kick to which I am accustomed. That said, a percentage of that batch was sprinkled with a combo of roasted dried chillies which were ground with Szechuan pepper... kick accomplished... two kinds of fragrant hotness. :D

Nonetheless, a work in progress.

Have a good one.

Cheers - Fermented.


PS... Anyone want some drinking snack recipes from the deep south of China? Some ingredients include stuff most Aussies wouldn't eat, such as chicken giblets and some other unmentionables. Sounds not so good, tastes divine. Let me know so I don't put anyone off their food. :D F.

Fermented - you were not being impolite you were giving feed back. Yeah I was going the satay kinda route and whilst I liked the first batch i would like to up the heat a bit more although as I said the wife loved it. It is all relative I imagine Tony trying a dish and saying that there was no chilli heat in it while the bloke next to him is sweating liike a ....

Sad to say my experience of satay is Aussie - sweet peanut etc had it in Bali and Singapore and it was similar - I remember travelling around China and eating the local cuisine and it is nothing like Western Chinese. Great shame as real chinese is fantastic. I will have to look into doing a sichuan jerky - a real sichaun experince something even Tony might enjoy.
 
So. Its just a matter of getting some corned silverside, cut as thin as the butcher can do it, marinade it for a couple of days and then dry it out in the oven? Might have to give it a shot with some of my chilli sauce.
Cheers
Steve
 
Or you could do it like this
Beef_jerky.JPG
in a converted 44 gallon drum.
 
So. Its just a matter of getting some corned silverside, cut as thin as the butcher can do it, marinade it for a couple of days and then dry it out in the oven? Might have to give it a shot with some of my chilli sauce.
Cheers
Steve
Yep, that's about the extent of it. Seems all magical and complicated until you do it. :)

Only thing to point out is that it needs two hours at 80C+ (say 80 - 90C) to kill off most of the bad bugs. I just set 80C at the beginning and leave it there until it's done.

Cheers - Fermented.
 
So. Its just a matter of getting some corned silverside, cut as thin as the butcher can do it, marinade it for a couple of days and then dry it out in the oven? Might have to give it a shot with some of my chilli sauce.
Cheers
Steve


Yep


http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...showtopic=16630

Steve.. i have been slack and havent sent you any yet in return for the sauce you send...more will be made very soon, and your sauce goes very nicely on it
 
homemade Jerk is terrible - in a good way :)

not only is it terribly addictive, my 2yr old downs it like there's no tomorrow. incl the one thats coated in chilli flakes! I can see that im almost going to have to make a batch every 2 weeks to keep up. on the upside lots of opportunity to try recipes. just need for this crappy heat to be over so i dont mind having the oven on for 5 hrs!

might give Merc's a bang this week. maybe instead of pork, use veal? hmmmm veal.

Stu - give cayenne pepper a go. I found it left a deep flavourful heat in mine. now an up front burning heat like the dried chilli, a nice clow heat. so if you bang up the dosage and then add some more chilli flakes etc you might get the heat your after

If you want to 'oriental it up' a touch more, cut the soy sauce back to 1 cup and add half a cup of Chinese cooking wine (Shao Xing) and a broken star anise (aniseed taste - don't overdo it) to the marinade. It would need a day at least to get into the meat a bit. You could also try adding a few centimetres of cinammon stick, broken. Don't overdo the cinammon in this combination or it will taste blech.
Cheers - Fermented.
funny you should mention this. I made pork spare ribs and pork rashers last night with these flavours. marinated for 24hrs.
4 tblsp rice win vinegar
4 tblsp soy
2tsp sesame oil
4 tblsp honey
2 cinnamon stick, crumbled
4 star anise
lots of frsh ginger - cut into sticks
8 spring onion roughly chopped
4 long fat chillies (deseeded for my wife's palate)
2 large packs of pork rashers and 1 large pack of ribs

- Combine everything in a bag and moosh it all into the ribs. marinate.
- Preheat the oven to 200C.
- Place the ribs on a baking tray. Cover tightly with foil and bake in the oven for an hour.
- uncover, raise the heat to 230C
- add a few more honey and 2 tsp Chinese Five Spice.
- Cook for 30 minutes, basting every so often. If it starts to dry out/burn, add some boiling water.
- Serve with a big pile of serviettes and beer.

OMG this was good. i figured on 2 nights worth given there 2kg of pork. nup almost all gone. my 11 month old ate 3.5 rashers. little piggy :)
 
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