Firstly, she uses an Excalibur dehydrator, which comes with nice flat square trays which are easy to line with baking paper. We have a different type of dehydrator, an Ezi Dry, which is round with a central hole. You can buy solid inserts that you can line the trays with. If you need to use baking paper, it will be trickier to cut for this style of dehydrator. (The reason we bought this one instead of an Excalibur is that it isn't as big, and doesn't take up as much bench space.)
Because of the different shape, we shape the mix into small, individual, flattened patties, instead of one piece rolled out and marked into squares.
Lastly, based on a recipe from Heidi Jean on the GFCFNN discussion forum I used to frequent, I'm suggesting milk kefir as an alternative to ACV for the marinade.
This makes a large amount of jerky, so feel free to reduce the quantity.
- About 2kg minced meat (we usually use premium beef, but higher fat mince is fine, or try lamb, pork or whatever you like)
- About 1 cup apple cider vinegar or milk kefir
- 1 Tbs celtic sea or himalayan salt (or more to your taste)
- Herbs, spices or garlic of your choice
- Up to 600gm of minced or grated vegetables, such as onion, carrots, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, broccoli - I find 300-400gm enough, and usually use 100gm onion and 200gm or so mixed other veges.
Mix together everything except the veges in a large bowl. Get your hands in there and squeeze everything together really well so that the acid from the ACV or kefir will "cook" the meat as it marinates and destroy any pathogens. Then add your veges and mix well again. Cover with a large plate and marinate overnight in the fridge.
Next day, set your dehydrator to HIGH or about 68C. Form little patties and flatten them to no more than 1 com thick.
You can see in the picture that they are on a solid insert at this stage.
Dehydrate for about 3-4 hours. By that stage, they should be firm enough to take them off the solid insert and place them (the other way up) on the mesh tray, to allow better air flow and drying.
After a total of 6-8 hours, they will be dry on the outside, but still moist on the inside. If you will be keeping them in the fridge and eating them within a few days, you can stop there.
But if you want to keep them longer, you need to keep them going until they are crisp and dry all the way through, up to 24 hours.
These make a perfect Paleo, GAPS or low carb snack that is a bit better balanced than pure meat.
If you want some extra fat, use them as crackers and spread some butter on top! A slice of tomato or cucumber on top of that would be good too.