Beef Jerky -- In the oven

Beeeeeeef jerky! -- yes yes I know it's got white powder. That's flour. This is my first attempt, and I am sharing where it worked and where I failed with you people so that you don't fail on your first attempt too! Even if the setup is -incredibly- easy.

For this you'll need:
500g beef steak (lean, preferrably, though rump does just as well)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more if you want it spicy!)
~1 handful of plain flour

Preheat your oven to 90 degrees celcius -- you don't want it very hot, because the idea is to dehydrate the meat, not cook and crucify it into charred strips.

Pull out your steak, cut away as much of the fat as you can (and gristle if you got a crappy cut) and cut your beef into strips, roughly the same width, thickness and length. To unify the dehydrating times and remove as much variance as possible.



Put the spices/seasoning into a bag, add your slight amount of flour, and the meat. Hold the top of the bag closed and shake the living daylights out of it to cover the strips with the seasoning. With the flour, less is more. It is merely there to stop the seasoning from becoming overpowering and making the meat taste blech. The flour -will- cook in the oven, so you don't have to worry about the raw flour taste.

If you have a roasting tray, which has a rack above a fat catcher thing, use that as the best choice. Make sure the rack is -clean- however, lay the bottom of the tray with paper towels to catch any drips, and lay your strips of seasoned meat out on the rack, tapping off excess flour in the process. The more flour that is on the strip, the higher chance of it -retaining- moisture, and that is not what we want.



Now, you put it into the oven and 'forget' about it. This takes a LONG time. I put mine in for 3 and a half hours, and they were still a little hmm, soft in the middle. Four, five, six and some recipe's I've seen recommend 8 to 10 hours dehydrating. Either way, if you're not sure, poke them with a knife. If the meat squishes, they're not done.

Once they -are- done, take them out of the oven, and leave them to cool down completely. Then, you can eat, or seal them away. Heat introduces moisture in an airtight container, which allows bacteria to grow. If done properly, and completely perfectly, beef jerky can keep for up to two years like this. :)

Deliciousness ...almost delivered. They tasted delicious still slightly warm! Once in the container though... well, there was too much flour alas.