My 1st jerky done, alder was used ending up with a lost cherry...

[chiroken]

I wish I had a scale to weigh how much jerky I have when it's done. My 6 lbs ends up as how much I wonder? I saw in the store yesterday your typical pack of commercial jerky for $6/80g bag. My roast was $3.40/lb. Crazy!  :o

[Quarlow]

You can't think about what you start with and what you end up with cause the commercial guys lose the same amount. You just have to think about the price you pay for theirs and how little yours cost to make. Yeah it is fun to see what it weighs before and after. I bought a digital scale from London Drugs for $20 or so. It is a "Salter Microtronic kitchen scale" model 2001. It is good to 5lbs and has a ten year guarantee. It works good enough for what I need.

[NePaSmoKer]

Nice looking jerky there.

I gave up keeping tract of how much of this and that i do.

[chiroken]

When you're a member extraordinaire you don't need to keep track of this and that. Us Newbies need to do that so we have some sort of idea of what we're doing!!!  ;)

I'd like to know my finished weight not to know how much water/weight is lost, but just to get an idea of what it actually costs to make compared to commercial. I recently bought a bit of turkey jerky from a local butcher shop and it was $66/kg. I nearly fainted! But boy, was it unbelievably awesome!! They used a Stuffer's recipe, not sure which one though...

[FLBentRider]

I think the loss is like 4 or 5 to one. Four pounds raw = 1lb jerky.

I keep trying to do the calculations, but snackers keep getting in the way.

[KevinG]

I believe FLB is right - meat has about 65% - 75% water in it, so when you dehydrate it you're removing close to that amount.

[Tenpoint5]

I couldn't take it anymore. I gave my wife a call while she was at the grocery store and asked her to pick up a bottom round roast. it is now sliced and in the fridge marinating, waiting to become jerky tomorrow after I get home from work.

[FLBentRider]

I couldn't take it anymore. I gave my wife a call while she was at the grocery store and asked her to pick up a bottom round roast. it is now sliced and in the fridge marinating, waiting to become jerky tomorrow after I get home from work.

GOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLl!!!!!!