Hot Brine Beef Jerky

Meat rots because microorganisms (mostly bacteria) feed on it. Cooking the meat kills the microbes but then it gets reinfected by microbes from the air, environment, etc. so if you want to keep meat from rotting long term, you need to put something in it that make it unpalatable to them. With hot brine beef jerky, salt gets absorbed into the meat and salt is a microbe killer. Keeping it dry helps also because microbes need water to live.

Get your materials ready. Boil two liters (two quarts) of water. Add two cups of salt and whichever spices you want such as garlic salt and pepper.

Cut the meat along the grain into strips about two inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick. Place them in the boiling salted water and let it boil for ten minutes.

Remove the strips of meat from the pot and put them on a pan. Use a darning needle or some other tool to push a long string through the middle of every piece.

Space the pieces a little ways apart and then hang them up somewhere to dry. Leave them for at least a couple of days. They should turn dark/blackish.

Take down the string and slide the pieces off.

Hot brine beef jerky is harder than some other kinds of jerky but it will keep for a very long time.