Pack the meat into a plastic or enameled container. Do not use metal. It will give a metalic flavor to the jerky. Push it all down to remove all the air pockets and cover with plastic wrap. Iwill place this batch in the fridg. overnight.
In the end this batch will be 23 pound (the container weighs 6 pounds)
After curing overnight, I am ready to shape the jerky and dry it. I built a dehydrator to do large batches. It is built of wood and lined with metal. In order to move it around I made it in two halves. One half is the heater and fan box. I use (2) 1000 Watt hot plates and 3 fans to move the hot air.
The other half is the dehydrator box with supports for ten drying racks. It is also lined with metal.
The racks I use are plastic. I spray them with non-stick cooking spray before using them.
I use a jerky cannon by LEM products because it is large enough to hold almost 2 pounds of meat with each filling. It is basically a big caulk gun with a nozzle for jerky and another for snack sticks.
The racks measure 24 inches by 24 inches. Once filled, each rack holds 4 pounds of meat.
This batch will use 6 racks and should be done in about 7 hours.
Every hour, I rotate the racks from top to bottom and spin them 180 degrees so that I get even drying. It will take about 6 hours to dry this much meat
When finished, I take the long strips of jerky and cut them down to 5 1/2 inch lengths and vacuum seal them.
