Food Safety and Marinating Beef
All of the data in this section is based on USDA best practices recommendations.
The maximum marination time for beef is 5 days – as outlined on the USDA website.
However, depending on the ingredients in your marinade, the meat’s protein components may break down and become less appetizing; if marinated for too long (24 hours), it may essentially turn to mush.
I’ve used several tenderizers in jerky, so depending on the enzyme, I can compare this mouth-feel to being somewhat “chalky.”
Include pineapple in your marinade as an illustration of this; pineapple contains the proteolytic enzyme bromelain, which can accelerate the breakdown of the collagen fibers in meat.
Check to see if certain ingredients contain proteolytic enzymes or if they have an acidic nature before using them in your marinade.
How Do Home Jerky Makers Marinate Beef?
Typically, home jerky makers will soak their beef strips in a marinade.
In other words, you cut your meat into pieces, either with the grain or against it, and put them in a zip-top bag or non-reactive container. The idea is to cover the meat in either container with the marinade.
Here is a photo of beef jerky that had been soaking in a Pyrex glass container for 24 hours:
I try to squeeze as much air out of zip-lock bags as possible. This can be accomplished by stacking the bag on top of itself.
Below are pictures of jerky in Ziploc bags:
Both of the aforementioned techniques are effective, and I have noticed no differences in the final product.
While vacuum sealing the meat or marinade is an option, it is not absolutely necessary. To the contrary, I believe that this process is more trouble than it is worth in terms of final results.
How Long Should You Marinate Beef Jerky?
Because beef jerky is typically sliced thin, between 1/8 and 1/4 inch thick, I recommended marinating for at least 2 hours.
From experiments by Greg Blonder, he observed:
- Wet brine was able to penetrate the meat 7 mm, or 0 inches, in just two hours. The recommended thickness of jerky is 27 inches, or roughly 1/4 inch.
- The meat could be penetrated by 17 mm (0 millimeters) of wet brine in 24 hours. 667 inches (roughly 2/3 inch).
Because jerky takes so long to dehydrate, most people just do it the next day.
It takes more than enough time—more than 24 hours—for the beef to completely saturate and absorb the salt, which is the whole point of marinating jerky in the first place.
Why is Salt Used in Marinades for Jerky?
The salt in jerky marinades and wet brines is used to kill microbes, which is why soy sauce and teriyaki sauce are frequently used in jerky recipes.
Because of the effect of osmolarity, salt essentially kills microbes. By removing moisture from the meat, salt works to reduce water activity. Since there isn’t any water activity, these microbes can’t thrive there.
To illustrate:
I use Kikkoman soy sauce and teriyaki sauce (see image above).
- Kikkoman Soy Sauce contains 960mg of Sodium in 1 Tablespoon
- Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce contains 610mg of Sodium in 1 Tablespoon
One standard liquid to meat ratio is 3/4 cup to 1 lb of meat; this ratio appears in countless online recipes.
According to the table above, 3/4 cup contains 12 tablespoons, which is the same as 11,520 mg of sodium.
Sodium is only one of the ingredients that make up “salt,” so we must translate the value from the above into something that can be used.
From a scientific perspective, we can examine the atomic masses of sodium and chloride:
- Na or Sodium: 22.99u
- Cl or Chloride: 35.45u
NaCl has an atomic mass of 58 and is made up of one sodium and one chloride. 45g/mol (22. 99u + 35. 45u).
In terms of proportion factors, thats 58.45/22.99 = 2.542.
With reference to our Kikkoman Soy Sauce Example, this math then appears as follows:
Converting that value to grams (1000 mg in 1 g):
That is 3/4 cup soy sauce for every pound of meat. If we were to compare that to equilibrium brining, that would be around 4. 64% salinity – which is actually somewhat high.
Usually, equilibrium brines are around 2.25 – 2.5% salinity.
In either case, 2 hours of wet marinating is sufficient if you want to make jerky that same day.
Check out this article if you want to use nothing but salt and water.
How Do Commercial Operations Marinate Beef Jerky?
It’s interesting to bring up this idea, in my opinion. primarily because it marinates beef quite differently than a home jerky maker would.
Most of the time, those who fall down the “jerky rabbit hole” try to replicate how the product is made commercially; however, this is extremely difficult to do because jerky is highly regulated.
Vacuum meat tumblers are used in a commercial operation as well as in some craft jerky operations.
These vacuum meat tumblers can be as small as tabletop units that can hold 50 lbs of meat at a time or as large as units that can hold 5,000 lbs of meat at a time.
Essentially a vacuum meat tumbler works like this:
You add your marinade and raw protein (such as beef) to the tumbler cylinder. Once the cylinder has been vacuum sealed, the free oxygen is removed.
The pores in the meat open up as the protein experiences the vacuum. This subsequent expansion permits the marinade to enter the protein fibers.
The sealed cylinder is then “tumbled” for 20–25 minutes after that.
Usually, the cylinder itself has fins that lift the meat as it is spun. The meat is said to become more tender and more marinade-permeable thanks to this lifting and tossing motion.
In a study by G.R. Skaar and Elizabeth A.E. Boyle they looked at marination technique and its effect on Salt content and perceivable flavor intensity for beef jerky.
The two methods I mentioned above were used in the study:
- Extended Soaking – specifically for 24 hours.
- Vacuum Meat Tumbling – specifically for 20 minutes.
In the study they found the marinade pickup percent was approximately 3% higher for the soaked product
In the soaked product they used 42. 7% meat weight to marinade for soaked product. This percentage is fairly common in equilibrium brining (usually around 40% liquid content)
Quantities were used in the vacuum tumbling based on the soaked product’s percentage of pickup.
This equaled to: 23.5%, 20.8%, and 24.3%.
They note:
They also found the soaked jerky had a 2% higher salt content than the tumbled jerky This was noticed by their sensory panel as well, and they observed that the soaked jerky had a stronger flavor as a result.
My conclusion from this study is that marinating for 24 hours is more than sufficient for jerky to absorb marinade and salt, and the results are comparable to those obtained when jerky is marinated by commercial operations.
Meaning that soaking your jerky for 2–24 hours is sufficient and that you don’t need to spend $2,000 on a meat tumbler.
The Best Way To Marinate Meat, According To Science
FAQ
Is 2 hours long enough to marinate beef?
Extra marinade can be kept in the fridge to be used for grilling later in the week, but only if it hasn’t come into contact with raw meat. How long: If you already have a tender cut of beef, flavor-enhancing marinating only takes 15 minutes to 2 hours.
Can you marinate beef for 1 hour?
Your best bet for achieving marinade magic is to soak your chicken, pork chops or loins, and steak for no more than 30 minutes. The danger of taking a long soak in the marinade is related to the acid.
Is it good to marinate beef overnight?
I advise marinating the steaks for at least 8 to 12 hours and up to 24 hours for the best flavor. If the steaks are only marinated for about 4 hours, they will still be delicious. However, for this marinade, more time is preferable. The same method works for chicken or pork.
What is the minimum time for marinating meat?
Short version: If you’re marinating small pieces of meat, you should marinate it for no more than 24 hours. Personally, I’ve found 12 hours to be the ideal amount of time, but you can go even shorter; even three to four hours will accomplish a lot.