Sadly, the jerky choices available at stores tend to be overpriced and lacking in taste. Fortunately, it is easy to make tasty homemade jerky. Not only can you make homemade jerky from a variety of meats, but you can play with the ingredients to find a recipe you adore.

First you'll need to find a nice piece of meat for the homemade jerky. Hunters often like to make homemade jerky from wild game. However, if you don't hunt, you can get good cuts at the grocery store for homemade jerky.

When shopping for meat for homemade jerky, it's important to find something that's not too fatty. Fat can turn rancid, which will naturally ruin the homemade jerky. Fat on the edges can be trimmed away, but stay away from a cut with a lot of marbling for your homemade jerky. A beef roast is a good choice of meat for homemade jerky.

The meat should be cut into quarter inch slices for the homemade jerky. This can be the difficult part of the homemade jerky process. A sharp knife helps, as well as leaving the meat in the freezer just long enough to stiffen up a little. Cutting against the grain will produce a more tender jerky, while cutting along the grain makes a chewy homemade jerky.

There are plenty of different recipes available on the internet for homemade jerky sauce. Most include different herbs and spices, salt and water. The most important ingredient, however, is the salt. While there are some homemade jerky recipes that don't include salt, recipes with salt will preserve the meat for much longer. The meat should be put in a bowl with the jerky sauce and left overnight.

Homemade jerky is made using moving air and low heat to dry out the salted meat. The oven is a good way to dry out the homemade jerky. The oven should be set low, to about 140 degrees. If it is too hot, the oven will cook the meat instead of drying it into homemade jerky. The finished homemade jerky should be flexible. Homemade jerky can also be dried using a smoker or dehydrator.