Customer Reviews

Jerky: Make Your Own Delicious Jerky and Jerky Dishes Using Beef, Venison, Fish, or Fowl

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Livingston takes a definite outdoorsman approach to jerky. He is sharply critical of USDA safety regulations, and he doesn't believe in nitrate cure as a preservative (he includes it in a few recipes, but says it's for preserving the color of the meat, not as a safety procedure). Some of the air-drying recipes gave me the willies just thinking about them! Livingston's approach to safety is to use meat from trusted sources, which often means avoiding the local supermarket in favor of a butcher or processor. He says if you use meat from known sources you'll avoid many problems. Good advice, but not always practical.
The book is lively and readable, but too many of the recipes are for curing 10 pounds of meat -- I wish he'd included smaller-quantity versions of some of them.
This is NOT the definitive book for beginning jerky-makers, but it's probably a good buy for an experienced jerky-maker to add to his/her library.

Whether you are a big fan of jerky, or a fan of big (lots) of jerky, this book has something for you. I never knew there were so many different recipes for jerky until I bought this book. The results taste far better than anything I've ever bought in a store. I highly recommend the book. Recipes frequently call for several pounds of meat, but you can either scale them down, or just use less meat and make more marinade than you need. The novice chef needn't worry: The recipes are very simple.

Another review notes that the author deviates from standard guidelines when it comes to cooking temperatures, and that's true. However, most recipes call for temperatures of 140 degrees, which is just slightly below the minimum temperature of 145 recommended by the FDA. When you consider that jerky spends 8-10 hours in the oven, I don't think food safety is an issue at these temperatures for anything other than pork, which the author recommends against.

Recipes that call for lower temperatures are left to the reader's discretion, but clearly marked as such.

If you are starting out making beef jerky this is a great book. It has a wide variety different things to jerky. If you have experience it might not have much for you. It was an interesting book to read either way.

I purchased this book for my husband and he has made 3-4 recipes out of it. There aren't very many recipes for an electric dehydrator, but we have had success converting the recipes for other drying methods. The recipes so far have all been super salty. Also many of them are for 10lbs of meat or more so we have had to cut recipes in half. It also has a lot of 'exotic' jerky like fish and fowl.

For a beginner this book probably isn't going to be quite what you are looking for. There is some good info in here, and some recipes that sound great, so if you have some experience with jerky I think it would be worth checking out.

This book gives you everything you need to know about how to make all types of jerky. It is the only book on this subject I need. It is very straight forward and easy to use.

This book will guide you through the steps to making quality meat products. Save money making smoked meat products and treats at home with limited investment in equipment.

This book has a variety of recipes many of which I will never use. The few I did use are excellent. The author spent alot of time on the devolopment of beef jerky which I did not need. I was actually looking for a book with recipes for beef jerky not fish,venison, etc. etc.

I really liked the book the only short fall is the book is made for big batches of jerky. I was able to cut the recipes down for what I needed.

Ummmm Good. Learned alot and its a money saver if your into dehydrating. Excellent transaction. Thank you

Bought this for my son-in-law for a stocking stuffer, he is into the the jerky thing. I thought it would be a nice surprise. Would buy again.