Pemmican has become one of my favourite foods. It is definitely a staple at our house.
Use very lean cuts, or ones in which the fat is all on the outside, so can be cut off cleanly, as opposed to marbled cuts. I usually use eye of round, but top or bottom round works, as does London Broil.
I used to dry the jerky in the oven, but now I have built a dehydrator box as per Lex Rooker's instructions: www.traditionaltx.us/images/JerkyDrierInstructions.pdf It is vastly superior, in my view, in taste and texture, plus it retains the benefits of raw meat, since it is not actually cooked. My oven could not be set low enough for this.
I buy beef fat at little cost from the butcher and dice it. I render it for several hours in a crockpot. I used to do it overnight, but once it burned and ruined the whole batch, so now I do it in the day so I can monitor it from time to time. The resulting tallow I use for pemmican and for cooking.
I use a Ninja food processor, which I highly recommend. It's not expensive, and pulverizes the jerky with ease.
Mix the jerky with equal weight of liquid tallow, pour into containers and refrigerate.
As Marnee said it isn't that much work after the first few times, and you can make large batches. Mine has gotten better and better the 6 or 7 times I've made it. My husband and children like it, too, after getting over some initial resistance to the idea. I make it at least once a week.
I haven't tried the U.S. Wellness pemmican, but I hear it tastes terrible, so if you do try it and don't like it, you might still like homemade.
Here is an excellent guide, also from Lex Rooker: www.traditionaltx.us/images/PEMMICAN.pdf
