Instructions

1. Go over the venison and cut away every trace of silverskin and fat. Deer fat tastes strongly of the animal and turns rancid quickly, and unlike beef fat there is nothing pleasant about it on the way.
2. Check the meat for shot damage and bruising and trim that out as well. Bruised venison holds blood, and blood dries into dark bitter patches.
3. Part-freeze the joint and cut strips at 6 mm. Venison is leaner and denser than beef, so a strip cut to the same thickness finishes sooner — keep them even or the thin ones will be brittle before the rest are ready.
4. Combine the seasoning salt, liquid smoke, barbecue seasoning, Creole seasoning, garlic and onion powders, black pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire and soy, and stir until the powders are suspended rather than sitting on the bottom.
5. Bag the strips with the marinade and leave them a full day in the fridge, turning the bag morning and night. Venison is close-grained and takes seasoning much more slowly than beef.
6. Drain the strips and blot them. Liquid smoke is concentrated, and a drip left sitting on a strip dries into a black spot that tastes like an ashtray.
7. Dry at 71 °C for 7 hours. This runs hotter than any other jerky here because wild game can carry parasites that farmed beef does not, and heat is the only thing that deals with them.
8. It is ready when a cooled strip bends without breaking apart but cracks across the surface as it goes. Lean venison passes from chewy to brittle quickly, so start testing well before the time is up.
9. Cool it fully and keep it sealed in the fridge for a month or the freezer for a year. With so little fat in it, properly dried venison outlasts beef jerky easily — the risk here is moisture, not rancidity.