First Try at Jerky

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ddave

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
SMF Premier Member
Mar 3, 2008
1,843
31
Far Northern California
Now that all of the planning and information gathering is over, I'm ready to try my first batch of jerky. Picked up a 3.5 pound hunk of top round last night, sliced (sort of) by the butcher and further trimmed by me. Will mix up the cure and seasoning early tomorrow morning (before the soccer games
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) and on to the smoker Sunday morning.

I'll post some pics as the project progresses . . . and try to ignore my wife's comments about me taking pictures of my meat.
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Dave
 
Heh, heh, I was looking back through my threads to see at what point we got cut off. Looks like this one was in progress at the cutoff date so I figured, may as well pick up where it left off.
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I used the Hi Mountain Black Pepper and Garlic seasoning and a 3 pound hunk of top round . . .



Here it is all laid out on the SnP.



It was a pretty tight fit getting 3 pounds sliced on the SnP!!

Smoked for about 3 hours (I think, can't remember for sure
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) with hickory at about 140°, then another 3 hours with no smoke, just heat. It was at this point that I snapped and posted progress pic wondering how much longer they should go.



Fortunately, Rich saw my post and told me to pull them. They are done. Good thing he caught me or I would have probably made "jerky crackers".
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Here they are (were) all finished up.



Rich also told me how to store them and that's actually what I was looking into this old post for. I may have to PM him for that info because Sunday, I am going to do six pounds of jerky. The plan is to put the first 3 pound batch on the SnP (the first time it has been used since I built UDS 1.0a) and smoke it for 3 hours. Then I will move the first batch to the oven with the door propped open for three hours. The oven thermostat will go down to 170°.

Then, I will put the second batch on the smoker for 3 hours of smoke and then take out the smoke can for the last three hours. If the temp and wind are cooperating, I will let the second batch finish on the smoker, other wise I will move it to the oven to finish.

The last batch only lasted 3 days. Hopefully this batch will last a little longer.
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Thanks for looking.

Dave
 
That does (did) look good. My dad always complained about his attempts at jerky on the smoker. I always thought it was too sinuey.

I've never tried it, would you recommend the smoker over a dehydrator? How did yours taste?

Thanks,
 
If it was too sinewy there was probably a little fat on the meat that should have been trimmed off. Also, the fat can give it an "off" taste as time goes on.

I don't have a dehydrator so I can't really say whether I recommend the smoker or not, but I like to use the smokeer and I think you can probably get a lot more on the smoker. Just have to be careful not to oversmoke it.

Mine tasted real good but could have used a little more pepper. I'll fix that next time around.
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Dave
 
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