I want to ship some of Dad's homemade deer jerky to my boys in Kuwait and Korea for Christmas. I do the normal recipe of soy sauce, lemon pepper, etc and then throw the pieces on a dehydrator. If I dry it real good, how long will it stay good if I put it in a ziploc bag? It doesn't have any preservatives.

Or do those store-bought jerky kits have preservatives in them? Mail takes about a week.....probably longer around the holiday. I don't have a vacuum sealer. Thanks.

Don't know. I sent some home made deer jerky to the troops in Afghanistan a couple year ago but I vacuum sealed.

the soy acts as a preservative b/c of the salt...plus the dehydrating makes it last longer. you should be fine.

Who gave you the venison ? hehe

My bumper!

Family sent me some deer jerky, when I was in Iraq.
Don't know how long it took to get there, but it was good!

vacuum pack it and you should have no problem.

How was it packaged?

Like others said: vacuum sealed may be the way to go.

Dan I sent several boxes to my cousin in Iraq when he was there. I use a marinade mix of Moores, Worcestershire and liquid smoke. Then I salt 1 side with hickory smoked salt and course black pepper. I use a dehydrator and I packaged it in ziplocks. It usually took 18-24 days to get there and I got nothing but compliments and please send more!

Thanks y'all for the info. I do use worchestire and garlic salt too. So maybe that'll work.

The salt cures it. It'll be fine. Try to squeeze all the air out of the ziplock that you can.

I usually make it in really big batches and it lasts a couple of weeks just fine before we eat it all. Would probably last much longer than that.

Oh, one thing: Wash your hands thoroughly (or use gloves) before you put it on and take it off the dehydrator to keep bacteria off of it.

I've had some last a month in a zip-lock bag with as much air squeezed out as I could. I don't use any special preservative or cure.

Use what my cousin calls his redneck vacuum sealer...put a straw in corner of the zip lock bag; zip it up to the straw and then suck the air out; pull the straw out and zip it the rest of the way up all in one motion.

You know.....I have one of those air mattress pumps that takes the air out of them!

I forgot about these and I don't know how much they are but my uncle made a bunch of sausage and used this to freeze it. They worked great.

http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Pages/VacuumFreezerSystem.aspx

I've had some last a month, some last less than a week. I have started using jerky seasoning on all of mine, just seems to keep better. You can get it at walmart for little of nothing and it tastes pretty good. Or, if you want to have your own flavor, just go and buy a box of pickling salt and put some in the meat. Let the meat sit and absorb the salt and/or cure for about 24 hrs. Then place on the dehydrator and the stuff should last plenty long enought to get over there.