00743 11 40 C 11 55. 007431 69 40 69 C 47. Slicing meat when making making beef jerky teriyaki beef jerky recipe where you get to decide whether you want a chewy jerky or a more tender jerky.
Here you will learn the different ways of slicing meat so you can get the best feel and taste out of your beef jerky! These instructions are the same if you are slicing venison for venison jerky as well. So get the deer roast ready and let’s get started! Cut with or against the grain?
Trim the fat First, trim any visible fat from your cut of meat. Here is a lean Beef Eye of Round Roast before trimmed. Use a sharp knife to cut away any fat. Fat makes beef jerky spoil faster, so it is best to trim as much as you can now to prevent your jerky from going bad.
So what exactly is the “grain” of meat? The grain of meat refers to the direction the muscle fibers run within a piece of meat. Okay, so how do you know what direction the muscle fibers run? You will be able to see the lines of fibers that run parallel to each other along a cut of meat. In the picture below, the fibers are running vertically from bottom to top. Slicing in the SAME direction of the fibers is called “slicing WITH the grain”. In the picture below you will see the blue arrows again showing the direction of the grain of the meat.
Below is an example of slicing AGAINST the grain. You can see that the muscle fibers are running in several directions. This makes the jerky easier to tear apart and less tough. Jerky slicer You can also use a jerky slicer when cutting up beef jerky meat. I use a Westin Jerky Slicer to get even sized strips which is fantastic when drying your jerky. Since the strips are the exact same size, they dry evenly. This means no more pulling several pieces of jerky off the dehydrator and leaving other pieces on to keep drying because they are a little thicker.
A couple turns of the handle feeds the piece of meat through and it slices it with ease. Just feed the slabs through the slicer either with the grain or against the grain to achieve your favorite chew! This will break up the muscle fibers and make the jerky a little less chewy. This technique works great when making The BEST Beef Jerky Recipe. I hope this has helped you decide how to slice your beef for making beef jerky. Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below!
Hi, Will so glad this blog is still active! My name is Debbie and I’m confused. I bought some top and bottom round roasts to make jerky but after reading all this I want to know if you can have a jerky that’s chewy, not leather,and tender as being older my teeth are not the best, LOL. So which way is better to cut these against or with? Or is it just not possible to get chewy and tender at the same time? Slicing against the grain will still be chewy, it will just be MORE tender than slicing with the grain of the meat.