By Dylan Clay
This sweet and spicy beef jerky recipe starts with sweet and finishes with a kick of heat courtesy of the red pepper flakes.
The best cuts to use for jerky are lean and cheap.
Cuts that have these qualities typically come from the rear of the cow.
For this article, I used brisket flat (pictured above). However, in your grocery store good substitutes include:
To start, the goal with jerky is to remove the exterior fat and silverskin.
The reason for removing the fat is because it won’t render and it can lead to rancidity. The reason for removing the silverskin is because it’s a protein elastin and won’t render, rather like the meat, it will shrink.
Since I’m working with brisket flat, I know there is usually one side with a fat cap and silverskin.
Simply use a sharp knife and slice this fat/silverskin off:
If there’s some silverskin on the meat, it’s not a huge deal. However it’s up to you – it’s still totally edible, it will just leave a slight “snap” on the pieces that have it on.
This brisket flat weighed roughly 4.5 lbs – which is A LOT of meat. Rather, I cut these up into roughly 1 lb pieces to use at a later date.
The second step is to then determine how you like your jerky – ie. do you prefer jerky with a bit of tug or do you like “softer” jerky?
Personally, I prefer soft/tender jerky so I slice against the grain.
To demonstrate what that means, say I wanted to slice this brisket flat with the grain, that would look like this:
Here’s an example of slicing against the grain:
In general though, find the “lines” or muscle fibers of the meat. Then based on your preference above, slice either with these fibers or against them.
In terms of the thickness of the meat, the goal should be somewhere between 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick.
The main reason for this is dehydration times as thicker meat will take longer to dehydrate; Aside from that, thinner meat will take on the marinade far better.
The ingredient quantities below are based on ~0.75-1 lb of jerky meat. I’d suggest sticking with these ratios and using 1 lb of meat as apposed to scaling them for say 2 lbs of meat.
Sweet and Spicy Marinade Ingredients:
Combine these ingredients in the specified quantities into a bowl. Ensure that the molasses and kosher salt have completely combined.
The next thing to do is to marinate the meat.
You want to marinate the meat for at least 2 hours – typically what I do is just marinate overnight to ensure saturation of the meat.
Simply add your sliced beef to the container – if you have ziplock bags, those work fine too.
Then add your liquid/marinade and massage the meat into the liquid:
If you’re using ziplock bags, roll the bag on top of itself to force out air.
I’m using a washable steel pan with a lid because I make jerky a lot – if you intend to make a lot of jerky, I’d invest in reusable marinade bags or something like these pans.
Put the bag or container in your refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Something I like to do is agitate/massage the meat throughout the day just to ensure all the meat is taking on marinade. This is especially useful for something like the container above or similar non-reactive containers.
Here’s the beef jerky after marinating 16 hours:
While a lot of jerky articles don’t really mention lethality treatments, they take about 10 minutes to do and help to kill off bacteria and microbes; Doing so also has no perceivable downsides and tastes the exact same.
To start, you will need:
Start by preheating your oven to 350F.
Then line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Then place a cooling rack on top of the baking sheet.
Take your marinated beef jerky out of the refrigerator and start placing the strips on the cooling racks – ensuring that none are overlapping.
Note: The reason for these cooling racks is because it elevates the meat off the baking sheet. If you were to put the meat on the baking sheet directly, you’ll case-harden the jerky.
You also DO NOT need to pat dry the meat.
Once all the meat is on the cooling racks, find a piece that you sliced thicker; With your probe thermometer you then probe this thick piece.
Once the oven is pre-heated, place the baking pan into the oven and monitor the internal temperature. The goal is to achieve 158F in the thickest piece; Once this thick piece is 158F, the rest of the thin meat is also 158F.
Here’s the jerky after heat treating:
This process takes ~10 minutes.
If you followed the above section, program your dehydrator to somewhere between 130-165F.
The reason you can dehydrate at a lower temperature now is because you’ve already heat treated the meat and now all you’re doing is removing moisture content (dehydrating).
On my dehydrator, I have a pre-programmed setting for 131F.
Lay the jerky strips on the trays of the device and again, ensure none of it is overlapping.
Then allow the jerky to dehydrate.
Typically it takes around ~3-5 hours to fully dehydrate beef jerky – depending on how thick you sliced it and the temperature you use to dehydrate at.
What I do is set a timer for 3 hours and then start checking. Here’s this jerky after 3 hours:
What you’re looking for is what I call “spider webbing.”
Essentially you’re going to bend the jerky in half and check the cross section of the tear; The tear shouldn’t feel rubbery and it shouldn’t appear wet.
Before bending the jerky, allow it to cool for around 5 minutes as it will be behave differently when allowed to cool vs bending right out of the dehydrator.
For a more in-depth breakdown of these “checks” be sure to read this article.
Likely some of your beef jerky will be done in 3 hours and you can take it out of the dehydrator and put it in a ziplock baggy; If some pieces need more time, allow it to continue dehydrating.
This beef jerky was done dehydrating to my liking after 3 hours and 30 minutes.
When you initially go to take the beef jerky out of the dehydrator and place it in a ziplock bag, leave the bag open to allow moisture out of the bag.
This also allows some of this moisture to return to the surface.
If you were to take the hot beef jerky out of the dehydrator and then place it into the baggy and then zip the bag, you’re essentially introducing the meat to humidity which may cause mold.
Simply leave the top open for 10-20 minutes and then zip close the bag after; Store in a cool, dark place.
Here’s the sweet and spicy beef jerky the next day:
Incredibly useful guide and your recipe is great. I’m a big fan heat so I added another tablespoon and it was perfect.
Happy to help Grace!