I got into beekeeping last year (after putting it off for 20 years) and part of my final impetus was that nearing 50 means my physical capability will eventually restrict the amount of hobbies I can meaningfully engage in since I’m not getting any younger. (unsurprisingly 🤦♂️)
As a result, I’ve started thinking more intentionally about developing hobbies that I can continue well into old age. Beekeeping has been a great addition because it gets me outdoors, gives me something to learn, and provides a tangible reward at the end. But what about making beef jerky? Is it similar to beekeeping in that it yields a tangible reward but only incidentally and not guaranteed to be pleasing/edible until you’ve mastered the flavor and safety techniques?
Part of me sees it as a hobby because there seems to be a lot to learn: selecting cuts of meat, experimenting with marinades and seasonings, mastering dehydration techniques, food safety, and constantly refining recipes. I can imagine spending years (possibly decades) trying different approaches and enjoying the process. I saw an old youtube account of mine recently that had a 15 year old video of me making Cuban sandwiches, which I’ve been honing/improving over the last 18 years and have never lost the obsession!
If beef jerky making is a hobby then I plan to pursue it. If it’s more akin to a culinary skill, then I plan to go on a deep dive to the back bottom corners of my closet to find my rock wool cubes and plant 20 hydroponic tomato seeds before the end of this weekend. (I have a ton of hydroponic equipment but it’s all been sitting in my closet unopened for the better part of 8-10 years)
You can define anything as your hobby.
One of the most unusual ones I have seen is a guy who uses RV bulldozers and excavators and dump trucks to dig out his basement.
It is wild and incredibly involved.
Shit, ya got a link for that?
It has been a while since I watched his stuff, but I am sure that link is it. That video is a good example of him doing it but he has a heap on his channel.
A hobby is whatever you decide is a hobby.
Imo, preserving is its own hobby. Beef jerky, biltong, pemmican, sauerkraut, kimchi, fruit leather, jams.
My reasoning: brewing beer is considered its own hobby by most. But it could technically be part of culinary > preserving > fermenting (yeast) > beer.
Sourdough is also in fermenting (yeast) as is wine, but people don’t expect a hobby beer brewer to try them out as well.
So within preserving we have fermenting (yeast), fermenting (lactobacillus), drying, canning, pickling, smoking,?salt brining, etc.
Culinary is so big, it’s like art. If I want to learn calligraphy, do I have to do portraits, photography, music and poetry too? Just a thought.
Dude, I fucking love your head space. Choosing your next fun time thing to do based on a linguistics debate you started with your self.
That’s my kind of neurotic.
Hope you have a blast either way!
A trick I use when deciding between closely balanced possibilities is to flip a coin. If you immediately think to yourself I wanted the other side, switch. Job done.
That said, first, IMO hobby shmobby. Perhaps you actually want to do jerky but are caught up on definitions, but also why not both?
Do one hour of each, 4 tomato seeds and a tray of water (+ nutrients? idk) in the sun, see what happens. I know little about hydroponics but have been meaning to try that bottle method (Kratky Method) for mint. Just crack out a minimum viable product and refine later.
I occasionally do jerky, actually got an air fryer specifically because it did dehydrate and it works fine (more than 10C resolution would have been nice, but adjust time as needed), get some stacking wire trays to do more. Use what you have, make it stable at 60-70C, I’ve used an oven on low cracked open a tiny bit with a thermometer in the past, wasteful but works. To get started just do a baseline without marinade. Get a round or other lean cut, half freeze it (easier to slice), sharp knife, slice as thin as practical, don’t sweat the mistakes. Start dehydrating it. Come back in 4 hours and have a look (don’t keep checking too often, messes with temperature) and every hour after until you think it’s done. Eat. That’ll do for a first pass, refine.
TLDR: pick one or two and have a go, try not to overthink.
But why can’t cooking be the hobby and beef jerky be a focus within your hobby
So your decision for an activity over the next decade or so depends on whether some strangers would label it as a hobby or part of cooking?
Is this some copypasta I dont know?
A hobby is pretty much anything you do other than what you do for your own or someone else’s sustenance. Getting paid to barbecue for customers paying you? Not a hobby. Grilling some burgers at dinner time because you or your family are hungry? Not a hobby. Spending hours and weekends on end slow cooking a particularly challenging piece of meat? Hobby. Eating an expensive piece of meat (as a treat)? Also a hobby.
I dont know, I think repetition is also part of something being a hobby. If I eat an expensive piece of meat once, is that really a hobby of mine?
Barbecuing counts as a hobby, as does cooking in general. I think that if you are doing it in a utilitarian fashion - like, in an assembly like exactly the same way each time for the purpose of saving money on beef jeeky - then I think it is just, like, a chore. But if you are doing it for the sake of experimentation or creativity, etc, then it’s a hobby.
My take is a hobby is what you enjoy doing in your down time. Even if you made the exact same recipe the exact same way every week, so long as it’s the thing you choose to do to relax, I’d call it a hobby.
Yes. Preserving food is literally a whole science
It’s all of those things.
Why do you need other people to decide that for you? It is both culinary skill and hobby. Life does not fit in categories described by single words.
Why do you need other people to decide that for you? It is both culinary skill and hobby. Life does not fit in categories described by single words.
Mainly FOMO (fear of missing out on a more “valid” hobby) but also to get others perspectives, including those I might disagree with because I’m often wrong in my initial judgment about stuff. I don’t want to look back 20 years from now and realize I deluded myself into counting something as a hobby that isn’t one, when the opportunity cost might be a better hobby that I’ve also been putting off getting started for the past 5-10 years (hydroponic gardening, wall/rock climbing, telescope star-watching, learning violin, etc.)
Nobody’s going to call the hobby police. Do what you want.
You have my permission to call whatever you’re interested in a hobby, if you feel like you need it.
You are massively overthinking it.
Just do what you enjoy and it is a hobby. You can always have more than one hobby if you have the time and can afford it. You can even switch between hobbies that you focus on at any point in time!
I think you’re the one who gets to decide what is and isn’t something you would consider a hobby.
Literally anything can be a hobby if you do it for fun on purpose.
It is a hobby.
End thread.
