I've been talking with a co-worker about pemmican but neither of us has ever tried it. I do not want to make it, but can't find anywhere local to buy it. Walmart has it for about 80$ a pound... Anybody have a suggestion?
Thanks

Limited places selling real pemmican.

They are having a sale. I have never used.
https://frankiesfreerangefoods.com/products/pemmican

Note the simple ingredients but one can alter and add salt and/or dried berries to taste.

Remember it’s not meant for snacking. It’s a survival food item you can add to soups and meals to supplement the survival diet.

The true advantage is storage at room temp and Shelf life.

Thanks,
That's exactly what I was looking for.

Reviving old thread.

So, after many years of wondering and looking around at commercial ones available (super expensive).

There is a carnivore bar for like $16 a bar. Think of large snack bar. Says it has about 1/2 pound of dehydrated meat.

http://www.carnivorebar.com


And so recently I decided to make my own.

After reviewing many many educational and diet and other amateurs or novelist. There really wasn’t one video that had what I needed.

Plenty of recipe types but not really the functional - here is what it takes to make it.

So, intent is the first thing I would ask...
Is this for storage?
Are you actually going to eat it?
Next question - flavor beyond storage?

What is the highest priority for you?

For me it was understanding the basics of how to combine the ingredients.
Of all the people and websites. No one ever talks completely about the actual making of it.

What is Pemmican - well google it.

The basic basic ingredients are meat and rendered fat.
Other items can be added to enhance flavor but may also decrease shelf life. Berry, fruits, nuts, currants (all dehydrated) plus spices of all kinds of your choice. If, adding any of these it varies on what ratio. It always should be known it will lessen shelf life for long term storage. The more you add of these the less shelf life.

I kept mine as simple as possible. 3 ingredients: Meat, Fat and Salt.

Basic steps is to first deal with the meat. It should be as lean a possible. I know this sounds funny since you are adding fat. But for the meat alone you want as little as the fat and connective tissue as possible. You need to dehydrate it.

Meat:
Processing the raw meat can be many ways - are you dealing with whole cuts? Ground meat? How good are you at trimming the fat? When are you going to cut/slice and then place in dehydrator? Is there a gap of time? This one is more important on bacterial growth, etc
Lots of choices from eye of round or bottom round and whatever your wallet can afford. But the leaner the better for longevity in the drying process.

Air dry? low oven? or dehdrator? Depends on the models.
Most ovens can't get that low of temp. Some will say go as low as you can and prop the oven door open. Most will recommend going for 6-8 hours. 10 hours. All these vary in time and temp depends on method of how you cut the meat and what you are using to dehydrate it. Officially, for dehydrator use - they recommend a temp of 170' to kill any surface. Now, keep in mind that any temp above the 120-130 range will also cook the meat. For the dehydrating process - you do not want to "cook" the meat.

The best way I have found is to rough cut slices of 1/4" approx and then dehydrate for some 10-12 hours at 120 degrees. Then take it out and crumble the slices. These small crumbles are more like small pieces - increase surface area and then dehydrate for additional 6-8 hours at 90-100 degrees. This was my method. 1st run will dehydrate most but breaking it up allows more surface area to dry all the pieces completely.

Tip: place ready to slice meat segments into the freezer for about an hour. This will make it easier to slice as thin as you can without the meat buckling and having thick/thin slices.

Once dried:
I used a food processor to make fine meat dust. I would not recommend your "significant other" be in the house when you do this... unless you have your own food processor that isn't hers. (helpful marriage hint)
It will take you some time and depending on how large your pieces are to begin. May take several steps to get it down to basically powder meat.
I have store purchased Bison tallow in jars. You can buy from Amazon. You can also do your own. Save the fat trimmings and render down. Just keep in mind what kind of fat. You want the fat from around the organs or deep tissue of the animal. Fat that doesn't melt at room temps. Bacon fat is not good for this. Once you have the fat of choice - make sure to melt it and have it in liquid form when you combine.

What ratio of meat to fat?
1:1 is the ideal. You can certainly do more fat but once you go too little then you lose shelf life. You can measure by weight (grams) , volume (approx) cup/ounces - just gives you a benchmark for mixture. For the purest - grams is the best as you can roughly calculate calories. 4 calories for meat per gram, 9 calories for fat per gram.

lets say I have 400 g of meat dust and added 400 g of fat = total of 800 g
400 x 4 meat = 1,600
400 x 9 fat = 3,600

Whole product of 800g of Pemmican will be 5,200 calories and you cut that into 20 sections.
That would make each section about 260 calories from a 40g section.

I used a mixing bowl. Placed the powdered meat and added salt - about 3-5 tbs - roughly 1 tbs per 100g of meat. Now the salt is important as there are Kosher salt, sea salt, and all sorts of deluxe fancy grade salts out there.

Then I poured the liquid fat (not too hot so you can't handle the mix or cook the dry powdered meat). Then mix the meat until it's all coated in fat and place into mold of choice. I simply used a flat pan with some parchment paper, then once cooled, I cut into sections of size.

I have found that approx 5-6 lbs of meat will dehydrate down to about 500-600 grams of meat powder. (1 pound is 454grams)
You lose about 65%-70% of water weight or if you like - you end up with about 1/3 of your starting weight.



Helpful hints:
Meat: mechanically meat tenderize the slices (yes - get them down to flat and thin. This will cause more surface area to dry.
FYI: This will take up more area on your dehydrator.

I am planning to eat these (every day). I am planning to use them as a snack during the day.

Now how does it taste?
Its waxy to start from the fat. No real flavor. Just a waxy texture/coating. As the fat melts then I taste either the salt and then the powdered meat. It's not a strong flavor. Now, one has to remember it's not a "snack food." It's meant for storage and portability (shelf stable at room temps).

How to make it last longer? Vacuum seal, use waxed paper, avoid using any other ingredients that isn't completely dehydrated. I use salt.

How can you make it more edible?
Use dehydrated berries, nuts, fruits, sugar, honey has come up, currants - whatever you find will make it good for you.
The beauty of a homemade recipe is you make it to your liking/preferences.

Just like those that reload their own ammo. You can make it pretty specific for your needs.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to make their own or at least have a reference on how.





Equipment needed
Dehydrator (as large as you can afford)
Meat slicer? Or a good knife with freezing the meat to set for easier slicing.


Ingredients:
Eye of Round 6-8 lbs at Chef's Store. Price is about $4.60 a pound (so that's about $23 for 5 lbs or about $37 for 8 lbs)
Fat - call around for local butcher. You may get lucky and they will give it to you for free. Amazon has Tallow listed for about $1.60 an ounce. So mixture above would be about 14 ounces (aka 28gram per ounce or 400gram) - about $23 for tallow. Cheaper if you buy in bulk ($0.70 per ounce)

Home costs: So making a 400g meat to 400g tallow is about $50. Divided into 20 segments. Each one would give you about 260 calories at a cost of $2.50.

As a benchmark: The Carnivore Bar (http://www.carnivorebar.com) - theirs run about $16 per bar. Theirs is about twice the size at 420 calories 35g from fat and 20g of meat. They also had honey and other things for flavor (taste better). To make your own it would be about $5 for equivalent size.


Is it worth it? Was it worth it. For me, hands down a no brainer. I am making additional batches for storage and use. My focus is to hone down the process, refine it and develop a way to make it more presentable "packaging" side. I am still playing with the recipe for flavor - right now adjusting the salt and keeping the rest as my benchmark.

Nice write up!

One question though.

You say:



but you don't say what salt you use.
Is Iodized Salt ok?
Which salt did you use?

Good writeup, oldkim!

But you missed one key step: The photo of the finished product.

If you fleshed this out some, it would make a great article for Survivalblog.