As you will soon realize, I'm new to smoking.... I did my first batch of jerky last night in the BS and made several mistakes. It came out too dry and too salty.
The last time I made jerky was with my cheap Little Chief Smoker. For that smoker I used the below marinade recipe and it took about 8 hours to be done and I only briefly dipped the meat into the marinade.
My first mistake was not spending more time searching the forum on how to do jerky.....
I think my second mistake was the marinade or leaving the meat in the marinade for too long. For 5 pounds of sliced beef I made up the following mix:
1 cup of soy sauce
3 tablespoons of lemon pepper
2 tablespoons of garlic salt
3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
I left the meat in the mix for about 20 minutes before racking it up.
I then smoked it for 2 hours with the temperature set at 210 degrees. I think this part was okay....
Then I made mistake #3. The jerky had been in the BS for 3 hours and I left the jerky cooking and took off with the wife to an outdoor concert and was gone for about 3 hours. I was probably thinking about how long it took in the Little Chief smoker and thought I had plenty of time......
The net results are that my jerky was overcooked and salty, however, I learned of several things NOT to do...
Michael
Im rather new to this myself, but have made a couple of batches of jerky, the first i cut too thin and left in too long, came out very dry. The second go round came out great. I purchased High Mountain Original Beef Jerky cure/seasoning. I cut some top round roast in the grain direction 1/4 inch thick. I applied the cure/seasoning as directed on the package to both sides of the strips and stacked all the strips on top of each other in a sealed container. I referigerated it at 38 degrees for 24 hours. I then set the BS temp at 170 degrees put the meat in, and smoked with hickory for 2 hours and 20 minutes. I rotated the racks every hour and a half. After two and a half hours i raised the BS temp to 200 degrees. I started taking the smaller pieces out after six hours, and the larger pieces were in the BS for a total eight and a half hours. All the jerky eaters around here really liked it. Good luck next time.
Michael and Dougsts -
Welcome to the forum, and thanks for posting your experiences. I want to try some jerky and need all the help I can get.
Quote from: asa on August 27, 2006, 03:07:50 PM
Michael and Dougsts -
Welcome to the forum, and thanks for posting your experiences. I want to try some jerky and need all the help I can get.
What he said. ;D