Make jerky / cure meat?

[Cor Blimey]

Can you?

Most of the weight in fresh meat comes from water content (fresh muscle meat is about 75% water content, cooked about 60-70%). Making jerky or curing the meat (air dried or salt preserved, either) would be awesome to preserve meat and reduce weight, at the cost of time/preparation and additional need to make extra water when eating (higher salt proportion / no water in the food)

[loriaw]

Originally posted by hinterland_community:

One requested before, but also an interesting idea. In particular the weight difference between "fresh" and dried meat would be something that would have to be looked at carefully. Would there be a way to justify the weight savings by making the "cost" of the meat high in terms of time at the fire?

Speaking as someone who cans and/or dehydrates most of our food (that we raise and grow), dehydrating over or in a stove isn't dehydrating. It's cooking. Dehydrating temps need to be on average 120-130 degrees, and there must be airflow to some extent. It isn't the drying time that would take up time, it's the cutting. For good dehydrating you need thin, uniform pieces of any food.

Jerky ~ the kind sold in a bag ~ is not possible given the game resources. Pemmican isn't either, but would be more feasible. It requires dried meat and berries, with fat. Adding berries (high bush cranberry or blueberries) and allowing us to harvest bear fat (the only in-game animal that would have enough fat to harvest) would allow for pemmican.

The meat would have to be harvested, cut, dried, and pounded to a powder. Same for the berries. Five pounds of meat needs about a half pound of berries, plus enough fat to create a paste. That paste then gets dried/dehydrated. It isn't difficult, just tedious. You work a lot, wait. Work a lot, wait. But ... that isn't any different than playing the game now. Feasibly you could dehydrate the meat and berries, render the fat, and create your pemmican balls ... then set it to dry while going out exploring, harvesting, hunting, etc. As long as it is out of the weather it would dry once the mixture is formed.

Dehydrating produce is much simpler. You harvest, cut if necessary, and dry using air or low temps. A decent homemade dehydrator can be made from screens, scrap wood, and a place to hang it. But ... without lemon juice/vinegar, many fruits (not berries) will darken. Things like beans, potatoes, etc. require blanching for one minute prior to starting the drying process.

Once you place food in a dehydrator of any sort, it requires only being checked every 6 hours or so.

Storage of ANY dehydrated food outside of pemmican (and even that is problematic) would be the biggest game issue. You need baggies or jars or the food will simply reabsorb moisture from the air and mold quickly. Pemmican could be stored like meat, outdoors in a container, but it would absolutely degrade faster than if kept in a sealed jar or baggie.

If pickles (as a suggestion) were added, even as a rare find, the jars could be recycled to store dried foods. Baggies work, and a box or two as loot would be ok ... but any good dried food will have sharp edges that can poke holes in them. Jars are best.

And ~ just for the record, Native people dehydrated food for centuries without stoves, very little fire, and used woven baskets/parfleches to store it. It's an excellent long term food storage method that most people (even young children) can learn easily.

[loriaw]

Continued because this is actually a huge topic …

The other option is freeze drying. Again, food needs to be cut thin and as uniformly as possibly, then hung outside. The cold will do the rest, along with the wind. Storage should necessitate an outdoor container.

Freeze drying was also used by Native people for food preservation.

Pemmican, since it doesn’t require salt (although the lack of any salt or minerals in the game diet would cripple a person in real life … this bugs me!) it is the most viable option, along with freeze drying.

A drying rack could be constructed from some of those birch saplings and a hide cut into leather strips (also usedful for boots, coats, etc.).

Peanut butter jars are already in-game (forgot to mention them in the last post), so just allowing them to be kept would work.

All of those reeds/cattails could be used to create woven baskets (particularly once seasons are added) to help with gathering and storage needs.

One last option to consider would be a cache (formed from snow in the winter, piled rocks in late summer/fall), and/or a root cellar. Again, all old time solutions that only require some manual labor but no electricity or technology.

Obviously root cellars would need to be dug in warm months, but are useable year round. If/when planting is implemented, they would be the absolute ideal food storage option. Just throwing ideas out here since the topic has generated interest. These are all things I’ve done personally, in several very different climates (from the northeast to the south west ~ US). I will say that tossing cabbage/squash into a root cellar in the fall, and being able to remove it and use it in late spring is exactly how our ancestors (including my grandparents) lived.

Up until the 40’s, grocery stores were unknown. People grew their own food and learned to store it for the winter/spring … and then repeated the planting and harvesting. They saved seeds (difficult in today’s world unless you pick wild or purchase non-gmo or hybrid seeds)each year as well.

Simple adaptations would be doable in-game using the current menu, but some adjusting for the wood stoves would be required. A drying rack sat beside one, along with a long burning fire could work. And … a SHOVEL lol. Please give us a shovel!!!

[cT917]

Awesome stuff loriaw! I was writing a few question points for you when a lost my progress on my mobile and then you added so much more and covered everything! Well done!

Originally posted by loriaw:

Obviously root cellars would need to be dug in warm months, but are useable year round. If/when planting is implemented, they would be the absolute ideal food storage option. Just throwing ideas out here since the topic has generated interest. These are all things I’ve done personally, in several very different climates (from the northeast to the south west ~ US). I will say that tossing cabbage/squash into a root cellar in the fall, and being able to remove it and use it in late spring is exactly how our ancestors (including my grandparents) lived.

Up until the 40’s, grocery stores were unknown. People grew their own food and learned to store it for the winter/spring … and then repeated the planting and harvesting. They saved seeds (difficult in today’s world unless you pick wild or purchase non-gmo or hybrid seeds)each year as well.

Simple adaptations would be doable in-game using the current menu, but some adjusting for the wood stoves would be required. A drying rack sat beside one, along with a long burning fire could work. And … a SHOVEL lol. Please give us a shovel!!!

I loved some of these points really spot on. I'm hoping we get added craftable "furniture" and structure soon.

But for now: do you think hanging over a wood stove would work? In your experience. (as a temporary solution for the devs) or is the air flow too low inside our survivors cabins?

Also you should start separate discussions for some of these ideas! Seeds and seedlings and root cellars and cattail crafting are all ideas I'd love to see added! Maybe others would too :D but here we talk about jerky :0 sorry no agro just want a good clean board lol we even have a separate board on Pemmican :D :D :D

Edit: so sorry I'm REALLY protective of my jerky xP

[loriaw]

Originally posted by dx421:

Awesome stuff loriaw! I was writing a few question points for you when a lost my progress on my mobile and then you added so much more and covered everything! Well done!

I loved some of these points really spot on. I'm hoping we get added craftable "furniture" and structure soon.

But for now: do you think hanging over a wood stove would work? In your experience. (as a temporary solution for the devs) or is the air flow too low inside our survivors cabins?

Also you should start separate discussions for some of these ideas! Seeds and seedlings and root cellars and cattail crafting are all ideas I'd love to see added! Maybe others would too :D but here we talk about jerky :0 sorry no agro just want a good clean board lol we even have a separate board on Pemmican :D :D :D

Thank you :-) A drying rack either beside or above the stove would work inside ~ but not outside by a campfire. Fire, or several fires outside while freeze drying would keep wildlife away (although since the game has the animals ignore meat unless dropped as a decoy it probably wouldn't be necessary).

The one thing I didn't touch on is smoking, mostly because of the lack of salt. You can smoke unbrined meat, but not effectively for long-term storage. Since I do this for real, food safety is paramount for me, and salt definitely needs to be added imo.

I'm hopeful though ... there were waves on a screenshot shared by the devs ~ and if you can scoop up a bucket of salt water, you can boil the water away and have salt! Raw sea salt isn't like table salt. Most of the time it's much better since it has trace minerals in it.

[cT917]

Originally posted by loriaw:

The one thing I didn't touch on is smoking, mostly because of the lack of salt. You can smoke unbrined meat, but not effectively for long-term storage. Since I do this for real, food safety is paramount for me, and salt definitely needs to be added imo.

I'm hopeful though ... there were waves on a screenshot shared by the devs ~ and if you can scoop up a bucket of salt water, you can boil the water away and have salt! Raw sea salt isn't like table salt. Most of the time it's much better since it has trace minerals in it.

I think they'll be adding "beach combing" :D

But you're thought on salt is awesome I got supper excited for that just now and feel like a fool for not thinking of that myself boil salt water so simple!

It would be cool to brine our salmon in one of those plastic containers we see lying around :D

[lill]

i hope i dont miss something by translation here.

loriaw i make my own beef jerky and i can assure u it is not cooking.
it works with 70°C by constant ventilation and needs 12h. (if i set 95°C then 70°C is what is on the meat i measured it sorry for that)
to cut it into thin pieces i need about an hour (2kg meat). if i want a special taste then i marinade it 12-24h before.
u could do it by lower temperatures if u raise the time and thats how those biltong boxes work.
they use a light bulb as heating source, the air flow is just physics u dont need a ventilator.
warm air goes up and takes the humidity, i guess they work on 40°C-50°C.
so it is not the heat it is the airflow.

if i smoke fish, then it is cooked at 100°C-120°C in smoke needs 2h but would only last for 2 days in the fridge.

[cT917]

Translations good lill :) but I think we're all in agreement it works really easy just some variety in method

Edit: I jumped at the "it's cooking" part too but I think that part got confused

[loriaw]

Originally posted by lill:

i hope i dont miss something by translation here.

loriaw i make my own beef jerky and i can assure u it is not cooking.
it works with 70°C by constant ventilation and needs 12h. (if i set 95°C then 70°C is what is on the meat i measured it sorry for that)
to cut it into thin pieces i need about an hour (2kg meat). if i want a special taste then i marinade it 12-24h before.
u could do it by lower temperatures if u raise the time and thats how those biltong boxes work.
they use a light bulb as heating source, the air flow is just physics u dont need a ventilator.
warm air goes up and takes the humidity, i guess they work on 40°C-50°C.
so it is not the heat it is the airflow.

if i smoke fish, then it is cooked at 100°C-120°C in smoke needs 2h but would only last for 2 days in the fridge.

Wow! You do your jerky at much higher temps than I do. Converted it would only be around 50C. Maybe it's because I'm a huge proponent of raw foods, but I dehydrate at as low a temp as possible ~ which is where the 'cooking' comment came from. Dehydrating isn't supposed to cook food. Technically, the brine does that prior to smoking, dehydrating, or cooking/baking. I use an Excalibur dehydrator, as well as air drying when possible (not often here in the steamy humid south). It uses a heat source and airflow ~ but no lightbulb. But, I've never made jerky of any sort without salt. Without salt it's just dried meat ... but very suitable for pemmican. Hopefully that explains what I was trying to say more clearly :-)

[lill]

ah now i understand completely. thx. apples and mushrooms i dry also around 50°C.

put the fresh cut meat about one day in teriyaki then fresh pepper and dry it ... damn now i am hungry. since i know this recipe i always marinade it. never used salt for it.

i always use beef did u ever made jerky from pork or chicken?

[loriaw]

Originally posted by lill:

ah now i understand completely. thx. apples and mushrooms i dry also around 50°C.

put the fresh cut meat about one day in teriyaki then fresh pepper and dry it ... damn now i am hungry. since i know this recipe i always marinade it. never used salt for it.

i always use beef did u ever made jerky from pork or chicken?

Not sure about where you live, but the teriyaki sauce sold in the US is very salty. I've made jerky from beef, venison, duck, rabbit, elk, and bison. We're eating some of our home grown pork (smoked ham) and other goodies tonight while Hermine blows and drips outside.

[cT917]

Originally posted by lill:

i always use beef did u ever made jerky from pork or chicken?

I've make Turkey jerky before at home it comes out like dog chews couldn't eat it... but if you had too

[cT917]

Loriaws right about the higher temps being dangerous it speeds up drying times but can allow bacteria to breed before all the water is evaporated lower temps with dryer air movement is better.

Vikings did use "freeze drying" very effectively with fish mostly cod because it's naturally low in fat

In game I think this would be too easy to just build a rack and leave it out in the cold (even if that's all it needs in real life) even salting to brine doesn't consume much in the way of resources for the game so we have a low cost high reward food that breaks the "balance" it's better to use a method that makes the players "earn" their meals so they value them down to the last scrap. I think the indoor heated method has a better balance of cost reward

[lill]

iam from berlin and ur absolutely right about the salt in the teriyaki sauce never thought of it this way. but before that i didnt use salt. most some pepper and or chilipowder.
and i guess i better go down 10°C when i make my jerky. strange it was the recommended temperature.

if we build stockfish racks like those then the wolves would eat the most of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish
but they talking about month's
and here is the mongolian variety
http://www.mongolfood.info/en/recipes/borts.html

[cT917]

Originally posted by lill:

http://www.mongolfood.info/en/recipes/borts.html

This was a fun read thanks for the link:D

Reminded me of the "trail gravel" (dried ground beef) that some of the backpackers would take with them hiking. It was so hard to eat you could barely chew it but you could add water and heat it back up and then it only was a little crunchy haha

Would the borts need the same thing? Does it need to be "softened" with warm water to be "edible"?

Edit: or is it more like fish stock?

It also mentioned grinding too that would help with the balancing issue of "in game value" it would take some time to grind our borts :D

[cT917]

I like all the ideas but my brain comes back to one question: will it work in Canada? Lol I think the devs will know best although we might have some Canadian outdoor enthusiasts among us :D chime in guys and gals!