Sweet Potato Jerky

Ingredients

• 2–3 large orange sweet potatoes (pick long, fat ones — they make the biggest slabs)
• ½ tsp citric acid (dissolved in 2 cups water — optional dip)

Instructions

1. Peel the sweet potatoes.
2. Slice lengthwise, about ¼″ (6–7 mm) thick. They shrink considerably, so don’t go thinner.
3. Steam the slices 4–6 minutes. You want them partially cooked and flexible, not soft — a knife should go in with resistance. This gelatinizes some of the starch, which is what makes the difference between chewy and brittle.
4. Cool completely — lay flat on a rack about 15 minutes.
5. (Optional) Dip briefly in the citric acid solution, then drain and pat dry.
6. Dehydrate at 130–135°F. Start checking around 8 hours; expect 10–16 depending on thickness and your dehydrator. You are not drying these until crisp.
7. Pull a piece when it looks dry on the outside but still bends substantially without snapping. Let it cool 30 minutes before judging — warm pieces always feel softer than they are.

Dog Approval Rating

Coming soon, getting notes from Sailor.

Version History

• v1.0 — First experimental batch. Steam-before-dehydrate method, based on the theory that raw sweet potato straight into a dehydrator is what produces hard, shriveled potato boards.

Personal Notes

These are not shelf stable — refrigerate them. They’re deliberately left moist enough to stay chewy, which is exactly the condition that grows mold at room temperature. Keep the working batch in the fridge and the bulk in the freezer. Commercial versions (like Healthfuls) hold moisture in a bag until 2027 because of potassium sorbate and sodium metabisulfite; we’re not reverse-engineering a preservative system, so ours doesn’t get that luxury.

The experiment to run. Same potato, same ¼″ slices, same 135°F, four batches:

• A — raw, straight to dehydrator
• B — 2-minute blanch, then dehydrate
• C — 5-minute steam, then dehydrate
• D — 8-minute steam, then dehydrate

Money’s on C landing closest to the commercial chew. Once we know which one wins, adjust cook time and dehydration time on batch #2.

A useful target to aim at. The Healthfuls bag works out to 34 calories per 12 g treat. That means we can weigh finished slices and get a rough read on whether we’ve pulled out about the right amount of water — a more precise gauge than squeezing one and guessing.