Pemmican - the original meal replacement

[HunterGatherer]

After decades of eating bars, snack foods, etc. on the mountain , I started making elk pemmican a few years ago and it has proven to be a great replacement for all that. The calorie density is so high that I can eat a few ounces a day while hunting and never feel hungry.


Dried elk meat, dried cherries and rendered beef fat (tallow). You don’t have to salt or brine the meat before drying so you can actually process quite a bit of meat like this…


You can just air dry it with high velocity fans for the first 80-90% of the process and then throw it in a dehydrator or oven turned all the way down. It should be raw when dried, not cooked. But you have to get out ALL of the moisture. Then put it in a food processor ( Ninja blender works great too) and basically turn it into a powder. Then add the dried fruit and reprocess. Pour the liquid rendered fat over the meat/fruit mixture. This is also a good time to add some salt, to taste, and some whole dried berries and/or nuts like walnuts or pecans. I also put a little black pepper in mine

Mix it thoroughly. Taste it, add honey or salt, to taste. Then spread it out on a cookie sheet and let it set up in the fridge overnight. Once it’s chilled and solid, cut into portion sized squares and wrap in parchment paper and then again in plastic wrap. They say it’s shelf stable for years but I always just throw my portions in the freezer and pull out what I need when I leave for a hunt …

 

[HunterGatherer]

Don’t fear the fat. This is what our bodies need on long hunts…

 

[Poser]

I made some awhile back using ground venison jerky and bacon fat. Really tasty, but only did well in cool weather.

 

[Nine Banger]

This is cool.

They used to shove these in our cache pick up bags at Philmont.

Took a quart Nalgene of water to choke them down.

 

[Jimbee]

I'd like to try this. Why is it safe or okay to simply air dry meat?

 

[taskswap]

Because bacteria need moisture to grow. That's also why you render the fat. Raw animal fat contains a lot more than just "fat" and some of the impurities contain moisture. Rendering helps purify it, and also lets you pour it into the mix as a liquid which gets all the air out from around the meat, coating it to prevent moisture from getting back in (fat is hydrophobic).

 

[The Guide]

You can also do this like you would make jerky to get different flavors in your final product. You can make a batch of jerky without the nitrate package (I like using "original" or "garlic pepper") and put a light smoke on the meat (I like 20 to 30 minutes at 145 to 160 in a pellet smoker) then right into a dehydrator at 160 to 165 until dry. To get it truly dry you must allow your meat to sit for several hours and normalize (redistribution of internal water) and then run it again to get it truly dry. Process your dried meat into meat flour in small batches.

As for your fruit, any skinned berry type fruit can be used. Cherries, blueberries, and raisins can all be dried and used. If you don't like those fruits or don't have them available to you, you can also use freeze dried fruits of any kind that you like and add them as fruit flower to your meat flower for the additional nutrients but you will get minimal flavor and mouth feel from doing it that way.

You can use pemmican in several ways other than eating it directly. Added to soup, Raman, or even a dehydrated meal can add to the richness of the flavor profile. Added to hot water with a bullion cube makes for a rich drink that will give you energy and warm you up on the mountain or back in camp.

Jay

 

[Nine Banger]

Since its being ground up in a food processor, has anyone found a workaround to just start with ground meat?

 

[Jtb.kfd]

After decades of eating bars, snack foods, etc. on the mountain , I started making elk pemmican a few years ago and it has proven to be a great replacement for all that. The calorie density is so high that I can eat a few ounces a day while hunting and never feel hungry.
View attachment 946827

Dried elk meat, dried cherries and rendered beef fat (tallow). You don’t have to salt or brine the meat before drying so you can actually process quite a bit of meat like this…
View attachment 946828

You can just air dry it with high velocity fans for the first 80-90% of the process and then throw it in a dehydrator or oven turned all the way down. It should be raw when dried, not cooked. But you have to get out ALL of the moisture. Then put it in a food processor ( Ninja blender works great too) and basically turn it into a powder. Then add the dried fruit and reprocess. Pour the liquid rendered fat over the meat/fruit mixture. This is also a good time to add some salt, to taste, and some whole dried berries and/or nuts like walnuts or pecans. I also put a little black pepper in mine
View attachment 946837
Mix it thoroughly. Taste it, add honey or salt, to taste. Then spread it out on a cookie sheet and let it set up in the fridge overnight. Once it’s chilled and solid, cut into portion sized squares and wrap in parchment paper and then again in plastic wrap. They say it’s shelf stable for years but I always just throw my portions in the freezer and pull out what I need when I leave for a hunt …

Thanks for this detailed post. I’m always looking for ways to add clean food variety/options and this looks great!

 

[The Guide]

Since its being ground up in a food processor, has anyone found a workaround to just start with ground meat?

You aren't grinding it as much as making meat flour. In my experience, once you dry ground meat, the meat stays in a pellet like format and doesn't want to shear. You just end up with hard tiny meat bb's that don't breakdown well. Maybe if you did multiple grinds and emulsified the meat with 0 added fat and then spread it thin and dried it or cooked it before blending it you might get a adequate product but if there is already fat added to the meat it wouldn't work correctly as the fat wouldn't be rendered leaving you with a product not shelf stable.

Jay

 

[CRJR45]

I’d like to try this , thank you .
But how about a more detailed description, one lb of meat = how much tallow and dried fruit ?
Or do you just wing it?

 

[HunterGatherer]

I'd like to try this. Why is it safe or okay to simply air dry meat?

As long as you dry it quickly and remove ALL of the water it is totally safe. As mentioned, bacteria need water to live.

 

[pods8 (Rugged Stitching)]

I made some awhile back using ground venison jerky and bacon fat. Really tasty, but only did well in cool weather.

Yeah this is what I was wondering about, does beef tallow do better about not liquifying in hot weather?

 

[Nine Banger]

You aren't grinding it as much as making meat flour. In my experience, once you dry ground meat, the meat stays in a pellet like format and doesn't want to shear. You just end up with hard tiny meat bb's that don't breakdown well. Maybe if you did multiple grinds and emulsified the meat with 0 added fat and then spread it thin and dried it or cooked it before blending it you might get a adequate product but if there is already fat added to the meat it wouldn't work correctly as the fat wouldn't be rendered leaving you with a product not shelf stable.

Jay

That makes sense.

 

[HunterGatherer]

I’d like to try this , thank you .
But how about a more detailed description, one lb of meat = how much tallow and dried fruit ?
Or do you just wing it?

For the base pemmican I use : 1pound dried meat “powder”, 1 pound rendered fat, 1/2# dried cherries. You can expand from there… I usually do a 10# batch

 

[HunterGatherer]

You can render your own fat or you can buy Tallow but it’s not cheap - big time saver though. I’ve done both. If you do decide to render your own fat, do it slowly - you don’t want to brown it.

 

[HunterGatherer]

I should have also mentioned- in regards to drying the meat - the pic I showed is several racks worth of meat combined. When you lay it out to dry, do it in a single layer.

 

[HairyScandinavian]

OK to render brisket trimmings? Pemmican has been on my radar forever but I haven't started it yet, got about 25 lbs of brisket trim in the freezer right now.

 

[SloppyJ]

Interesting concept for sure and definitely dense with calories. But what do you do for carbs?