Beef Jerky

As I've mentioned before, I'm a planner. I like to have a game plan for most aspects of my life, and be able to keep to that game plan. I am tackling vacation with the same perspective. I know it is not going to be easy eating meals on the road and staying Paleo, so I have set forth to make it as easy as possible for myself.
One of the ways I am doing this is by preparing my own snacks ahead of time and bringing them with me. Today I have prepared and frozen 'granola bars', baked muffins, mixed trail mix, and made beef jerky. Preparing ahead is a great way to not only stay on track nutrition wise, but also to save a considerable amount of money. Here is the jerky I made today. I will say, it is not nearly as salty as the store bought jerkies, so if you want a saltier product you would need to add another tbsp or so of it to the liquid. I prefer to keep our sodium intake down, and I think it tastes great without it!

Beef Jerky

2.5lb beef

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp sea salt

1 tbsp coconut aminos

3 C Warm water (to dissolve salt and melt maple syrup)

1 tbsp cayenne pepper (adjust as your heat preference

In large bowl, mix together all ingredients except beef. Let mixture sit till cooled. While cooling, slice beef to about 1/8-1/4 inch thick slices.

Once liquid is cooled, submerge beef and allow to sit in the refrigerator at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 250. Using tongs, remove beef from liquid allowing excess liquid to drip off. Place onto baking sheets. You can usually get about 1 sheet full per lbs, so for this batch I had a little less than 2 and 1/2 sheets full. Place in oven for 1 hr.

After 1 hour, remove beef from oven and turn each piece over. Return to oven for additional 30-45 minutes, depending on the thickness.