Making Deer Jerky and Pemmican — Preserving Venison for Survival

Use lean cuts — hindquarter rounds, backstrap, or eye of round. Trim away all visible fat, sinew, and silver skin. Fat goes rancid quickly and ruins dried meat. You need about 2 kg of trimmed lean meat to produce roughly 500 g of finished jerky.

Partially freeze the meat for 1-2 hours to firm it up for clean slicing. Cut with the grain into strips 3-5 mm thick, 2-3 cm wide, and as long as possible. Cutting with the grain makes chewy jerky; cutting against the grain makes more tender strips. Uniform thickness ensures even drying.

Rub coarse salt into both sides of each strip — about 20 g of salt per kg of meat. Salt draws moisture out and inhibits bacterial growth during the drying process. For flavoured jerky, add cracked black pepper or crushed dried herbs at this stage. Lay strips flat and let them cure for 1-2 hours.

Hang strips on a drying rack in direct sun and wind (traditional method, 1-3 days), or place on racks over a low fire or in an oven at 60-70°C for 6-10 hours. The jerky is done when it bends and cracks but does not snap in half — still flexible, but no moisture beads when squeezed. Overdrying makes it brittle; underdrying risks spoilage.

Break finished jerky into small pieces and pound in a stone mortar and pestle (or between two flat rocks) until it becomes a dry, shredded powder. The finer the powder, the better the pemmican binds. This is the base — dried lean protein with virtually no moisture left.

Chop the reserved deer fat (from trimming in step 1) into small pieces and heat slowly in a pot over low fire until the fat melts completely and the solid bits (cracklings) float and turn golden. Strain through cloth to remove solids. The clear liquid fat is rendered tallow — it solidifies at room temperature and is the binding agent and calorie source in pemmican.

Combine the pounded jerky powder with warm (not hot) rendered tallow at roughly a 1:1 ratio by weight. Add a handful of dried berries (blueberries, cranberries, or saskatoon berries) for flavour and vitamin C. Mix thoroughly until the tallow coats all the meat fibres and the mixture holds together when pressed. Pack tightly into balls, bars, or pouches.

Wrap pemmican bars in cloth or pack into rawhide containers (parfleche). Stored in a cool, dry place, pemmican keeps for months to years — the rendered tallow seals out moisture and air, and the salt-cured, fully dried meat resists bacterial growth. This was the primary travel and emergency food of Plains nations, fur traders, and Arctic explorers for centuries.