The Magic Bus Trip

Sol · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:44 am Post subject: Sources of jerky and pemmnican

Hi,

I'm going to be doing some traveling and hiking/camping trips in the coming months so I'd like to stock up on jerky and pemmican. Can people recommend good sources of either that don't have MSG, nitrates, nitrites, or other crap?

Thanks,
Sol

Valcan · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 3:50 am Post subject:

Hi,

I buy thinly sliced beef meant for shabu shabu (it is very thin). I lay out the meat on non-stick foil on my oven rack and put it on the lowest heat. About to hours later the beef is super dry and crispy like potato chips. I eat them with soft butter as the dip. No need to add seasonings but you could.

Val

Badger · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 7:18 am Post subject:

http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Cate...%3ABeef+Pemmican+%26+Snack+Sticks

US Wellness Meats carries them. They have pemmican both with honey and berries and without. The without does still have salt, though. If you're looking for salt free I think that you need to make your own.

I have never tried their pemmican, just looked at it and thought about purchasing it. If you do try it be sure and let us know how it is.

Making it yourself doesn't seem too hard. Just make unseasoned jerky like Valcan describes, or any other way, then grind it to a powder in a food processor/blender and mix with an equal weight of melted tallow. I've meant to do this myself a few times, but always end up eating the jerky before I can Oops

That grass fed jerky sure is tasty. Happy

_________________
Me? I just want to know everything about somethings, something about everything and nothing about the rest of it.

Sol · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 12:32 pm Post subject:

Val - Nice idea. Thank you. I think I should buy a gadget, I think it's called a mandolin, for thinly slicing my own meat if I'm going to get into making my own jerky or pemmican.

Badger - The US Wellness pemmican looks to be really high quality. I will order some and report back. I'm fine with salt. My only minor complaint is that they can't decide whether to call their animals grass-fed or grass-finished. In any case, I spent a bunch of time on the Web last night trying to find clean sources of jerky and couldn't find any and I found no sources of pemmican at all. So, thank you for this source. It looks great.

Sol

Dean · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject:

Sol,

Get a dehydrator. If you get the kind that stack you can dry a bunch of strips of meat at once. I used bison round, which I was told was the best part to use for jerky. After this stuff was dry, I put it in a food processor and ground it up, then I used a coffee grinder to pulverize it into powder. Native Americans used rocks. Wink

If you get some bison fat or beef fat, you can easily render it. Then, it's easy to combine and make pemmican.

http://magicbus.myfreeforum.org/about122.html

These things can (and probably should) be done in stages. Eventually, you'll have what you need to make your own pemmican. I have a big bag of pulverized bison meat in my freezer and jars of tallow, so I can make pemmican anytime I want. Cool

HTH

_________________
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
- Jimi Hendrix

Every day you'll see the dust
Never get off the Bus!

lex_rooker · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:17 pm Post subject:

I ordered the Wellness Beef Pemmican about 3 years ago and ended up sending it back. It came in the little plastic containers about 1" wide by 3" long and 1/2" thick with the plastic film on top that you pull back - like the vending machine crackers with cheese spread.

The stuff I got was about 70% rendered fat, 30% lean, and so salty that I couldn't eat it. I called them up and complained. They took it back but I never ordered any again so I don't know if they made any changes to the stuff.

I ended up ordering a couple of 3 lb tubs of their rendered grass-fed beef fat and mixed it with my own home dried jerky. Way better, and by ordering the fat already rendered it saved a lot of time and mess. Just melt and mix with shreded jerky (equal weight of each), then press into lined cupcake or muffin pans and let set. I then carry the "hockey pucks" in a Ziploc plastic bag.

To use just peel and eat. Or, you can drop them into stews, soups, or other camp favorites and let simmer until the meat becomes hydrated and somewhat tender.

I make my own jerky drier with a cardboard box and a 150 watt light bulb. Costs about $10 bucks to make and the meat dries at a very low temperataure, (about 100 deg) and doesn't cook. With a 12" X 18" box you can dry 10-15 lbs of meat at one time. Glad to supply pictures if you like.

Lex
_________________
Raw (95%) or rare (5%) meat as my only food since April 2005. Zero carbs.

Dean · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:29 pm Post subject:

Kim · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:53 pm Post subject:

Valcan · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:40 am Post subject:

Me too for pictures, I would love to try it.

Val

lex_rooker · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:03 pm Post subject:

There seems to be some interest in making a cheap jerky dryer. I used to have full plans, pictures, and a write-up on how to do this that I put togehter for the Boy Scouts, but it went the way of all good things last time my computer crashed. I'll cobble something together and get it posted or sent out to those who are interested.

Lex
_________________
Raw (95%) or rare (5%) meat as my only food since April 2005. Zero carbs.

Billi-Jean · Posted: Fri Apr 11, 2008 4:19 pm Post subject:

Groovy, Lex Cool

I'd be very interested too -thanks!

lex_rooker · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:20 am Post subject:

I took the photos for the $10 jerky maker project today. I'll write the instructions over the next couple of days. God willing and the creek don't rise, I should have this done by Thursday or Friday.

Sorry this is taking so long, but my wife wanted to upgrade our satellite TV system to receive several additional International Greek channels. This required a bit of engineering as I need both DirectTV as well as DishNetwork and combining the two systems reqired replacing all existing equipment. I now have a 10' high antenna structure with two 36" satellite dishes looking at 6 different satellites, and all this feeds into a bunch of black boxes tied together with 12 cables going to one television. I'm getting tired just describing it.

Lex
_________________
Raw (95%) or rare (5%) meat as my only food since April 2005. Zero carbs.

Billi-Jean · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:32 am Post subject:

Tracy · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject:

I'm interested too!

Anyone try the box fan method, a la Alton Brown?
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www.fearandloathinginthekitchen.com

Nikki · Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject:

I would love to try the AB method but I am afraid it would attrack Gators to my back yard...I live way too close to nature for that Shock

I prefer to be the carnivore on my property.

lex_rooker · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 6:35 am Post subject:

I finally got the instructions for the $10 Jerky Maker completed. I'd like to give a special thanks to Heather for posting them on her server space to make them available to everyone.

I've set the security permissions on the .pdf document for Read Only and added a water mark at the bottom of each page to indicate that it is to be distributed free of charge. The file is rather large at over 2mb as there are over 50 photos at relatively high resolution of 300dpi. It should print nicely. Feel free to download, print, or distribute to anyone you think might be interested. I've literally made hundreds of these and never had a failure yet so I'm confident in the design. My instructions - well that's another matter. Hopefully you'll find them sound as well.

If you find an error, or something isn't clear, let me know and I'll try to correct it as soon as possible. I'll be leaving for a 2 week vacation on April 30th, returning on May 13th, and internet access will be spotty at best while I'm gone. I'll try to check my e-mail (lex_rooker@yahoo.com) occasionally, but can't promise anything.

Heather, I'll work on getting my own web hosting service as soon as I return. In the meantime, thanks again.

Comments good or bad welcome. I'll use them to improve the product. Sorry this took so long. I hope you find it worth the wait.

Click HERE for the instructions.
_________________
Raw (95%) or rare (5%) meat as my only food since April 2005. Zero carbs.

Billi-Jean · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 8:39 am Post subject:

Definitely worth the wait, Lex! Yup

Can't thank you enough for the time and effort that went into this -brilliant stuff!

The detail and pics for every step make it easy to understand and not go wrong...I think even I could manage to whip this up!! LOL

Sol · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject:

Lex,

THANK YOU! The document is wonderful - very clear.

I'm going to make one of these!

Sol

Nikki · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:40 pm Post subject:

These directions are awesome..I am definitely going to try it.

Thanks Lex

Van · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 1:46 pm Post subject: sources of jerky

Wow Lex, what a service you provided! To take the time to put together that instruction manual. Great job!

Heather · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 8:54 pm Post subject:

Quite thorough thanks for taking the time to put it all together.
_________________

Heather

Dean · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject:

Excellent work on this, Lex! Thanks for the time you put into it.
_________________
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
- Jimi Hendrix

Every day you'll see the dust
Never get off the Bus!

Valcan · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 1:55 am Post subject:

Hi,

Another option I am exploring is making jerky in a Nuwave oven. I ordered one last night and can't wait for it to get here. All the reviews I read were great. Does anyone have one of these ovens? They sound perfect for a carnivore that does not eat meat raw.

Val

lex_rooker · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 1:58 am Post subject:

In putting this manual together I ended up with a couple of pounds of jerky. Not to let an opportunity slip by I decided to render a few pounds of suet and make Pemmican.

I ended up with thirty two 60 gram bars. Each bar has 30 grams very dry and lean jerky meat and 30 grams of beef tallow. This works out to right at 400 calories per bar.

If I eat 5 bars per day, my protein, fat, and calories should be very close to what I'm eating today as fresh ground beef. I'm going to attempt to eat only pemmican for the first 6 days of my vacation. I'd go the whole distance, but I'm leaving on Wednesday and there's not time to make another batch to cover the second week of the trip.

I'll report the results upon my return.

Lex
_________________
Raw (95%) or rare (5%) meat as my only food since April 2005. Zero carbs.

Kim · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:

Thank you Lex for taking the time to do this. It's great!

Kim

Tracy · Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 4:09 pm Post subject:

Thank you Lex!
_________________
www.fearandloathinginthekitchen.com

Badger · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 8:57 am Post subject:

Oh, I missed it. The link seems to be bad now Cry

_________________
Me? I just want to know everything about somethings, something about everything and nothing about the rest of it.

Dean · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 9:03 am Post subject:

Still works for me.
_________________
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.
- Jimi Hendrix

Every day you'll see the dust
Never get off the Bus!

Badger · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 9:05 am Post subject:

That's odd. Just goes to a blank page for me. Maybe I need to reboot my computer, but I have too much open right now to do that at this time. I will be back to check again at some other point.
_________________
Me? I just want to know everything about somethings, something about everything and nothing about the rest of it.

~mina~ · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:35 pm Post subject:

Badger · Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 10:54 pm Post subject:

Yeah, I can't wait for Firefox 3. It's supposed to be able to let you save your multiple windows when you close down. I suppose I could just try Opera, though, which already has that feature.
_________________
Me? I just want to know everything about somethings, something about everything and nothing about the rest of it.

Stormwolf · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 12:09 am Post subject:

I'musing firefox 2.something and while it won't let you do it if you shut it down, it will save and allow you to reopen the same pages if it closes unexpectedly, which if I remember also applies if you shut down windows or a mac without first closing the program. (I'll go check and get back in 3 minutes) LOL

Stormwolf · Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 12:18 am Post subject:

It worked!