Testing the Weston Original JerkyGUN Jr.

Hello, my beautiful lovelies! Hi, it's Emmy. Welcome back. Today, I'm excited to share with you my experience testing this amazing tool: the Weston Original JerkyGUN Jr., which is a homemade jerky gun. This little gadget was sent to me by viewer Whitney, and I'm so grateful for her generosity. She found this at her local thrift store, where I find all of my vintage treasures.

The gun goes here, and as you can see, it's already attached with a few attachments that come with the package. There are brushes, a funnel, a little plunger, and various other attachments to make different sized jerky. Whitney also included some seasoning packets, which contain three flavors: Peppered, Honey Barbecue, and Mesquite. Each packet is enough for five pounds of meat, but since I was only working with one pound, I did some math to figure out how much I needed. I weighed out 12 grams, which is about a fifth of the weight of each seasoning packet.

Before we begin, it's essential to have an impeccably clean machine. I ran mine through the dishwasher to ensure everything was spotless. Next, you need to prepare your meats. To do this, add some cure (a powder that contains nitrates) and a seasoning packet along with one tablespoon of water, and mix it really well until the meat is nice and sticky. The instructions say to do this until the meat is coated evenly.

Now, let's talk about how the jerky gun works. It's quite simple, actually. You just need to load the meat onto the gun, close the lid, and squeeze the handle. This will force the air out of the meat, which helps create the chewy texture we all love in jerky. The nozzle is adjustable, so you can make different sizes depending on your preference.

I decided to start with the peppered beef jerky, as it's one of my favorite flavors. I loaded up the gun and gave it a squeeze. As expected, the meat was forced out of the nozzle, creating a nice, even texture. The flavor was intense, but not too overpowering, which is perfect for those who like a good pepper kick.

Next, I moved on to the honey barbecue turkey jerky. This one had a slightly different texture than the beef, as it's made with turkey instead of beef. However, the flavor was still amazing – not too sweet, but just a hint of sweetness that complemented the smoky flavor perfectly.

I also tried the double extruded flat nozzle, which produced a more uniform texture and flavor than the other two options. The peppered beef jerky from this nozzle had an incredible texture, almost identical to store-bought jerky. It was chewy, but not too dry, with just the right amount of black pepper flavor.

Final Thoughts on Homemade Jerky Making

Making homemade jerky is super fun and very satisfying, but it's also labor-intensive and requires a significant amount of energy. The only way to make this economically feasible is if you're a hunter and have loads of meat that needs processing. However, for those who are willing to put in the effort, the results can be truly amazing.

I want to thank Whitney again for sending me this incredible tool. It was an absolute pleasure to use and experiment with different flavors and textures. I've always wanted to try making jerky at home, and now I know exactly how it's done.

To all my lovely viewers out there, I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I did. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. Don't forget to share this video with your friends and follow me on social media for more fun content!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHello, my beautiful lovelies! Hi, it's Emmy. Welcome back. Today, I'm going to be testing this:and this tool is a homemade jerky gun.Actually, it's the Weston Original JerkyGUN Jr., so I imagine that there is a larger size --this is the junior size.And this little gadget was sent to me by viewer Whitney.Thank you so much, Whitney, for sending this to me.She sent me this entire box right here --and she found this at her local thrift store, where I find all of my vintage treasures.And here it is.The gun goes here.I have an attachment on here already. A pair of brushes; a funnel;a little plunger;and various attachments to make different sized jerkies.And Whitney also included this! And this is theseasoning packets. This contains the seasoning packets to flavor your jerky. It comes in three different flavors:Peppered, Honey Barbecue, and Mesquite. It also contains a cure, which is a powder that contains nitrateswhich keeps your jerky nice and bright pink.Since each one of these packets is enough for five pounds of meatand I was just doing one pound of meatI did a little bit of math and I weighed out twelve grams, which is one-fifth of sixty grams,which is what the weight of each one of these packets was. That'll make more sense when I actually show you how to do this.The first thing, you want have an impeccably clean machine; I ran mine through the dishwasher.And then you're gonna have toprepare your meats. So to your meat, add your cure and add your seasoning packet and one tablespoon of water,and then mix this really well. The instructions say to do this until the meat is nice and sticky.Essentially this jerky gun is acaulking gunCaulk. C-A-U-L-K.Caulk.And you press this little release;and you pull the plunger back.And that allows you to fill the shaftwith your meat! So the easiest way I found to fill the chamber was to make little balls of meat andgive them little squeeze they fit easily down the chamber. You don't want to trap any air in there because even when you use the plunger,it's really difficult to get the meat all the way back there because you've got an air pocket in there.So once you've got your meat in the chamber, you're gonna put the end back on with the nozzle of your liking,and then you're gonna pump the trigger until the plunger hits the meat. So you just pump, pump, pump.Exactly like a caulking gun. So next you're ready to extrude.You're gonna have a cookie sheet, and then have a rack. This will aid in drying.And then you just squeeze gently while pulling the gun towards you, and the meat will come out in nice little rows.So, once you have your meat all laid out on your tray place it into a preheated,one hundred eighty degree oven, and you're gonna put in there for about an hour.You want to keep the door of the oven ajar a little bit.I just used a little pot holder, so the moisture can kind ofevaporate out. And then after an hour give it a flip, and then every half an hourgive it a flip and just check on it.You'll start to see a little beads of fat collect on the jerky and it's gonna shrink significantly.And you'll know when the jerky is done when it looks dry, but it still remainspliant. You want it to be flexible. And here is the finished jerky.These narrower ones, the turkey ones, cooked a little bit faster,so these cooked in about an hour and forty-five minutes while these thicker ones took more about two hours and fifteen minutes.These ones cooked about two hours.And I have to say thatextruding the little beautiful neat rows of meat was very, very satisfying; kind of reminded me of, like, my Play-doh dayswhen you had that Play-doh extruderand you just squeezed the Play-doh out -- and it came out in nice little tubes. So satisfying!Alright! So, enough of that; let's go ahead and give these a taste. This one is the mesquite beef jerky,and I used the single, kind of tubular one. Let me bend it and show you what the texture's like.So, completely dry in the middle,but a little bit soft. Here we go.Itadakimasu!Mm! Mm-hmm.And that's pretty good. It tastes like something you would buy in the store.Quite salty, but it is beef jerky -- that's how you preserve meat.But it has a really great texture to it too: nice little chew, not overly dry; quite similar to a Slim Jim,but you don't have that casing on the outside, that--that snapping action that you have, which I adore. You don't have that, but the texture inside is quite similar. A bit like pepperoni.And the flavor of this is quite nice, too: it's smoky, but it doesn't taste like artificial bacon smoke or liquid smoke. It's quite nice.I like that.Let's try this one next; this is the turkey jerky, and this is in the honey barbecue flavor.This one, too, is pretty flexible and when we tear it,that's what it looks like inside. This one to me looks a little bit more like a dog treat, but let's give that a go.Mm! Mm-hmm.That's got a good flavor too! The honey barbecue flavor isn't too sweet, which I was a little bit worried about.Just a little bit sweet,and it tastes very similar to those cans of beef jerky that you can get and they're wrapped in plastic. Very similar texture,and flavor. The flavor of the meat is a little bit lighterwhich is not surprising since this is turkey. This tastes a little bit more like lunch meat to me, or a little bit like ham.But--equally good. Mm-hmm.Lastly, I have this one -- and this is the double extruded flat nozzle. And this one is quitepliant as well; and this is the peppered beef jerky.Let's give that one a go!Mm!Mm-hmm.I like the texture of this one. This one is very reminiscent of those beef jerkies that came in a can that were shrink wrapped --do they even make those anymore?-- both in texture,and both in flavor. Very, very similar. This has, of course, a lot of black pepper in it,so there's a tiny bit of kind of warmth to that, and lots of black pepper flavor.Again, this is quite salty, but it is beef jerky and tastes exactly like something that you would buy from a store.Yum!I was very happy about how this worked. It worked beautifully. The build quality is very good. Although everything is plastic,it is very, very sturdy and worked exactly as it said it would. So, final thoughts on homemade jerky making: it's super fun!Very, very satisfying, but very, very labor intensive, and it does use a good amount of energy as well,so I think the only way to make thiseconomically feasible is if you are a hunter and you had loads of meat that you had to process,then this would be a no-brainer. Whitney, thank you so much for your generosity and for sending this to me.It was an absolute pleasure to make a homemade jerky.I've always wanted to do it. So, yeah! And thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you guys enjoyed that one.I hope you guys learned something.Please share this video with your friends and follow me on social media, and yeah,I shall see you in my next video! Toodle-oo! Take care! Bye~~~!\n"