How many lbs to fill the smoker?

[tsquared]

I am wondering how many lbs of thinly sliced beef people use to fill their racks when doing jerky. When I am slicing for salmon pieces for instance, I know to thaw 11 or 12 lbs of fillets to fill 8 racks. Does anyone have a standard weight they know to use for jerky?
T2

[devo]

That would all depend on how uniform your whole meat is sliced/shaped I would amagine. I have the four rack and generally goe with 5lbs.

[viper125]

Im doing ground beef jerky 1/4 thick. As near as I can figure it will average 1.03 lbs per rack. So my 12 rack will be over 12 lbs.

[tsquared]

Thanks guys--I'll thaw 9 or 10 lbs of top round and go from there. I'm not quite a jerky newby but it has been a few years.
T2

[Habanero Smoker]

You can always double up your racks by inverting one over the other. That will give you twice the capacity.

[anthony]

My experience with whole meat jerky is you can fit right around 5lbs on 4 racks. 

One day I will convert my obs to a 12 rack. Inverting the racks is great but it makes rotating a little tougher. 

[viper125]

Im doing ground beef jerky 1/4 thick. As near as I can figure it will average 1.03 lbs per rack. So my 12 rack will be over 12 lbs.

Sorry guys decimal is in the wrong place. It is 1.3 lbs So the 12 shelves  holds 15.6 lbs. I just proved my math by doing. LOL

[tsquared]

I did my 10 lbs of round yesterday. I must have sliced it a bit thin as I ran out of room on 8 racks. I left part of the slices in the brine for an extra couple of hours, put 1 hr 40 min. of  smoke on the first batch and then moved them to the dehyrdrator. Then I started the second batch in the smoker. Everything came out great--thanks to all the regular jerky makers for your helpful posts. Today I'm putting 20 lbs of spring salmon into the dry salt to start the curing process. I love xmas holidays.
T2