Preserve meat without refregeration by Jerking (drying), smoking and making Pemmican

To preserve meat by drying it, cut the slices really thin and you can either dry them in the sun, by placing them in covered racks in the sun until they have lost most of their water or, we used our smokehouse.   Cut off all the fat and save it for making pemmican.

First thing we cut the strips of beef and or venison in long strips about 1/4 inch thick and a foot or so long then we rolled them in a drying mix of salt covering the meat over night, ...this took out a good deal of the moisture from the meat before we started. 

Next we hung the cut meat strips in the smoke house and I or my Grandpa lit the fire in a trench pit with dry corn cobs and filled it with green hickory and apple branches, then covered the fire and let the smoke and warm dry air fill the smoke house. 

We kept the smoldering smoky fire going filling the smoke house until the meat dried into blackened , dry hard strips, that were simply delicious and the women added to our soups all winter.

Even without salt the same can be done but would of course be slower, and it is a good way to preserve the meat for the future without refrigeration. 

Be sure not to let the fire get to hot, you don't want to cook the meat, just dry it out and keep the flies off. When the jerky is ready, it will be hard, and pretty dark almost black and should keep for almost ever so long as you keep it dry and away from flies.

You can eat the Jerked,  smoked meat "as is" or use it as additive to soups and stews or best yet make it into Pemmican.

To make Pemmican the way my family did for time out of mind from the deer we hunted and later the beef we raised take the dried jerky and shred or powder it.   Now we use the beef and venison jerky to make our own Pemmican. 

Start with the Jerky, now pound it or shred the dried jerky.

You will want to take a lot of dried animal fat, we used the fat trimmed off the beast we made the jerky from, cut the fat into tiny bits about the size of a black walnut and render them ...in a pan being sure not to let the fat boil up. when you have rendered the grease out of the fat, yoyu can digard these lumps or keep frying them seperately and eat them as a snack with a little salt. (they taste pretty good.)

Now pour the hot grease overover the shredded jerky mixing the animal grease with the jerky until they have the consistency of a sausage, you can then pack your Pemmican into bgs, we used the cleaned out intestine of the animal, but there are other products today, for the squeamish, or you can use animal skin bags as well.
Then we lightly rubbed the pemmican with a salt brine and smoked it again to make a protective barrier once more.

You will need about one half dried shredded jerky by weight to mix with about the same weight of rendered animal grease. It will take about 5 pounds of fresh lean meat to make one pound of jerky, that you can make into Pemmican.

This Pemmican is with the addition of some dried or fresh fruits like cranberries almost a complete diet that yoyu can live on for some time.