Makin' Jerky

[coues7]

I was asked to make elk jerky for our churches 24th of July celebration and I need your input. The bull I killed (harvested) in November 2007 was 12 years old and he tastes like an old leather boot.....tough and GAMEY!!!!! Does anyone know WHAT TO DO prior to or during marinading TO REMOVE THE GAMEY TASTE???

 

Thanks in advance to all you chefs and cooks

[GameHauler]

Maybe you could get a hold of huntn coues mom and pop

They seem to have had a pretty good recipe for jerky

Although, stills smells pretty gamey

 

Sorry good luck with your jerky

 

I'm sure you will get some good ideas.

[bcoover]

Soak the meat in Apple Juice. Takes all the gamey taste out, and it doen't make it taste like apple juice. Soak for 12 to 24 hours.

 

That is how I cook my deer meat and it tastes just like beef.

[GameHauler]

Interesting Idea.

I will give it a try also

but I do not want my venison to taste like

MOO COW

 

I have also read milk works

But the last drink of milk

I had was about 48 years ago

[firstcoueswas80]

I have always soaked the meat in milk and that seems to work for me.

[GameHauler]

I have always soaked the meat in milk and that seems to work for me.

 

Where do you live

Still like the wings spread over the nest

Enjoy it while you can

[CouesWhitetail]

I have used the milk soak overnight, seems to work great.

 

Amanda

 

[Chef]

Also you can try 1/2 milk and 1/2 coconut milk. (from a can)

Also add a touch (& I do mean a touch) of allspice.

 

When you are done marinating, season the meat with all the stuff you like.

Again, don't go too heavy on the allspice!

[coues7]

Well fellas.....with the help of all you CW'ers and some input from my dear mom we tried 4 pre-soak marinades. Milk (1%), Coca Cola, Apple Cider Vinegar and Apple Juice.

We got the pre-soak marinades going at 8:30 this evening. Here are some pics.

After about 24 hours of this pre-soak we'll dump out the pre-soak and put on the jerky marinade.....I'll keep you posted

 

[az4life]

This is going to be interesting. IF you can keep things seperate, and do a "control" batch with no remedies for the original old boot taste, all you need is a few people to sample each and give some feedbag err rather Feedback on the taste and texture.

 

I'll keep watching for your updates

[coues7]

Here's a pre-soak update:

We used a strainer to rinse the meat after it had soaked for just under 24 hours

We mixed up the jerky recipe (which I'll share later if this turns out). We re-used the same labeled plastics bags to hold the meat while marinating as we did for pre-soaking. That way we keep track of everything.

 

A few observations:

1. The meat pre-soaked in Coca Cola had nearly zero (0) smell of gamey!

2. The meat pre-soaked in pure apple cider vinegar totally changed color (see next pic).

3. The meat pre-soaked in the milk and apple juice both still had some gamey smell to them just not as much as when we originally started.

4. The meat pre-soaked in the milk was still red??

6. The meat pre-soaked int the apple juice was in between the red and the color below.

 

 

I'll keep you posted when we start dehydrating

[coues7]

Well the jerky is all done! All of it turned out great. Here is are some pictures of the finished product:

 

 

When you look at the picture it looks like there is a lot of pepper on it.....my wife put some of this on it just prior to turning on the dehydrator.

My daughter loved all the jerky....my wife and I ranked the finished product in this order

Best-Coca Cola presoak

2nd-Milk presoak

3rd-apple juice

Worst-tastes way too much like vinegar-apple cider vinegar presoak

 

NONE of the finished product tastes gamey....ALL the presoaks took away the gamey taste and made the jerky more tender! If we had to do it again I'd go with either Coke or Milk.

 

Here is our dehydrator.

 

 

Hope you all found this to be informative. And here's the recipe:

 

10lbs of meat

2 cups worchester sauce

1 cup soy sauce

4 tsp Lawrys seasoning salt

1 tsp liquid smoke

1 1/2 tsp finely ground pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 cup lime juice (optional)

hot blend sprinkled over the jerky before dehydrating.

 

 

coues7

[bcoover]

I have never tried coke or milk. But after your experiment I might have to. Thanks for sharing .

[CouesWhitetail]

Thanks for posting your experiment and results. That's some good info. Perhaps some of the reason coke tastes best is because it adds a lot of sugar to the meat during the marinade?

 

I like Chef's idea of half milk, half coconut milk with a touch of allspice. I put some allspice in a sausage recipe this year and it was excellent.

 

Amanda

 

[tjhunt2]

After looking at these pictures of jerky being made I am pulling some elk meat out of the freezer right after this reply. Thanks for making me do something productive today. I better unload the truck from my scouting trip first.

 

TJ