How long doesJerkylast in the fridge once opened?

The USDA rates 2 kinds of this separately

Jerky, homemade keeps 1 month, which is shorter than the window this page answers with. The USDA files 2 separate entries under this name — commercially dried and homemade — and they do not keep for the same time: Jerky, homemade holds 1 month to 2 months outside the freezer, Jerky, commercially dried holds 12 months.

Sealed against opened

Opening the package costs 4 times here: 12 months sealed in the pantry against 3 months open in the fridge. That is a real difference and worth dating the container for, but not the collapse it becomes for the more perishable items in the same list.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The source also indexes it as commercially dried, dried and homemade.

Jerky, commercially dried

• Unopened · in the pantry12 months
• Once opened · in the fridge2 months to 3 months

Jerky, homemade

• In the pantry1 month to 2 months
• In the fridge1 month to 2 months

Turning the range into a date

Each kind gets its own dated rows here, 4 rows across the 2 the USDA lists under this name, because a date is only worth printing against the window it belongs to.

Jerky, commercially dried

• Unopened · in the pantryUse by12 months after the day you bought it
• Once opened · in the fridgeUse by2 months to 3 months after the day you opened it

Jerky, homemade

• In the pantryUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you stored it
• In the fridgeUse by1 month to 2 months after the day you stored it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 2 months to 3 months in the fridge once opened. Jerky, commercially dried does spoil, but a bacterial limit runs in days and this window runs past six weeks: the figure rates how good it will be. Past it, judge it by look and smell: this window rates how good the food will be, not the day it becomes a hazard.

Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Jerky, commercially dried past its 2 months to 3 months in the fridge once opened window. Past that the calendar stops deciding and the food itself does. Mold, a slimy or sticky surface, soft or darkened spots, or a sour smell mean it goes out whatever the date says.

The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Is that a long time?

Among the 17 items the USDA files under Meat, Jerky, commercially dried ranks 2 by how long it keeps outside the freezer. Meat products, canned holds 5 years, Prosciutto holds 3 months. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 77% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 7 days to 3 months against the 12 months of Jerky, commercially dried, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Prosciuttokeeps 2 months in the fridge
• Pastramikeeps 40 days in the fridge
• Hot dogskeeps 1 week in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Pork rollkeeps 7 days in the fridge once opened
• Baconkeeps 1 week in the fridge once opened
• Corned beef, in pouch with pickling juiceskeeps 5 days sealed in the fridge

Products the USDA rates in the same places

No other product in the file is rated in exactly this set of places: pantry, pantry from the day of purchase, refrigerator and refrigerator after opening, and nothing else. That makes the shape of this record unique among the 466 products here, so the closest comparisons available are the entries that share most of it — Bacon, Chorizo and Meat products. Their windows are printed beside them below, and none of them is rated in quite the same way. Of the 8 shown, 1 keeps longer than this one.

Nothing carries this exact set of places, so these share most of it.

• Bacon1 week in the fridge once opened
• Chorizo1 day in the fridgefresh
• Meat products3 days in the fridge once openedup to 5 years sealed in the pantry
• Prosciutto2 months in the fridge
• Pastrami40 days in the fridge
• Hot dogs1 week in the fridge once openedup to 2 weeks sealed in the fridge
• Pork roll7 days in the fridge once opened
• Retort pouches or boxes3 days in the fridge once opened

The rest of the Shelf Stable Foods shelf

Shelf Stable Foods is a short shelf: 2 products besides this one. They run from Meat products at 5 years down to Retort pouches or boxes at 4 days, and this product sits with 1 product above it. A shelf this small is worth reading whole, which is why every one of them is printed below rather than a sample. Across the whole of Meat the same product ranks 2 of 17. The middle of the shelf is Retort pouches or boxes, at 4 days. The shelf is the source's own subcategory, Shelf Stable Foods inside Meat.

• Retort pouches or boxes4 days3 days in the fridge once opened
• Meat products5 years3 days in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 12 months, Meat offers 1 product that holds at least twice as long outside the freezer. The nearest step up is Meat products at 5 years against this one's 12 months, and the rest are none beyond it. A short list like this one is itself the finding: the category has few longer options. In the other direction, 15 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Prosciutto and Pastrami among them. The largest step the category offers is Meat products at 5 years.

• Meat products5 years3 days in the fridge once opened

The record this page is built from

The USDA publishes 2 separate rows under this name — records 109 and 110 — and this page carries all of them rather than picking one, because their windows differ. Between them they fill 4 of the nine storage slots with a time. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for Jerky, commercially dried, which is the kind the plain name means here, chosen kind by kind rather than by the order the source happens to list them in. The same record answers to commercially dried, dried and homemade in the source's own index.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: commercially dried, dried, homemade

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.