On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 10:22:04 -0500, Kristina Carlton wrote:

>How do I know when it's done? I put chicken strips and ground beef in the
>food dehydrator on 150 degrees about 12 hours ago. While it's definitely
>'dry' I am not sure it's dry enough. How do you really know?
>
>I want to use some of it just to eat it as is and part of it to make
>Pemmican.

12 hours should do it.  Drying the meat is just that: drying not cooking.
The test you want is to pick up a piece and bend it.  If it is brittle and
snaps, it's ready to make pemmican.

If you are going to eat the jerky withing four or five days, it need be
only as dry as you like it; remember, you are not cooking it, only moving
it somewhere along the continuum from fresh and raw to totally water-free.

If, on the other hand, you want to keep it for longer, and if you want to
make pemmican, dry it right out, as the water provides a medium for
bacterial growth.

It so happens that I made some jerky last night: kangaroo, crocodile,
possum, wallaby and emu.  I haven't made possum before.  The reason for
making the jerky is that my employer, Nature and Society Forum, is
launching a member's book "The Biology of Civilization" on Tuesday
evening.  It has some relevance to paleofood, so I thought I'd bring along
a few paleo nibbles for the occasion.  I'll post some extracts from the
book in a separate post under the book's title in a few minutes.

Good luck withyour jerky Kristina.

Keith