Steve Rinella's Wild Game Jerky

Ingredients

• 4 to 20 pounds of whole muscle venison (or any other horned or antered animal)
• Jerky seasoning

Tips:

• Before slicing the meat, place it in the freezer for a couple of hours.
• You want it icy and firm, but not so frozen that a knife can’t easily pass through. This helps you get perfect slices and saves you a lot of aggravation

Directions

"Ideally, making  wild game jerky is one of those fundamental outdoor skills that every hunter should know."

Watch Steve Rinella walk through the process in this video.

1. Slice the meat across the grain in slices that are 3/8-inch thick. If the meat starts to thaw, pop it back into the freezer.
2. Combine seasonings with meat and mix thoroughly. Set meat on dehydrator racks immediately or let it marinate overnight to let the flavor sink in. (vacuum sealing the meat helps in marinating)
3. Lay the meat out on the dehydrator trays, leaving space between the slices.
4. Set the dehydrator to 145°F. Depending on the idiosyncrasies of your climate and dehydrator, it will probably take between 2 to 4 hours to finish the job.
5. Start checking the meat at 2 hours and remove pieces as they finish. They should be firm throughout, with no sponginess. They will not break when you bend them. Rather, the fold will reveal a network of thin white lines.