What make a better jerky

[NePaSmoKer]

I set my dehydrator temp at 150.

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[rkp]

I finished the jerky. It came out okay, slightly overdone but with a good taste. I've been eating it all week and haven't had any stomach issuesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

[BBQIT]

While I personally prefer whole meat jerky, it's very difficult for the home jerky maker to achieve the same kind of results as commercially made jerky when using whole muscle meats.  Over the years I've found that ground meat jerky offers excellent results because you can better control the distribution of the cure and the seasonings throughout the meat; that's all I make now.  The best seasoning/cure mixture I've found is available at www.nesco.com; the flavor is "cracked pepper and garlic".  This stuff is awesome - I'm continuously overwhelmed by requests from family and friends to "please crank out a batch"...

[JF7FSU]

...it's very difficult for the home jerky maker to achieve the same kind of results as commercially made jerky when using whole muscle meats. 

Can you explain what you mean by this?  I generally use whole muscle meat in a wet marinade.  I rarely use GB and almost always use eye round and think my results are waaaay superior to anything commercially made.  If mine is pretty darn good, I bet NePas' is super darn good.

[BBQIT]

My post was in response to the very first post which asked the question as to what was better to use, whole sliced meat or ground meat.  I've made both, but have had more consistent and better results using ground meat versus whole sliced meat.  When eating the product, you'd never know that the jerky was made using ground meat as it has pretty much the same texture and consistency as whole sliced meat.  At the end of the day, it's a matter of personal preference, but if you haven't tried using ground meat, I'd encourage you to give it a try - you might be pleasantly surprised with the results.  Give the "Cracked Pepper and Garlic" seasoning from Nesco a try too - like I said, it's awesome.  Seeing as how Nepas has a jerky extruder from Dakota, it looks like he sometimes makes jerky using ground meat too...

[JF7FSU]

Sorry, didn't mean to criticize, was wondering what you meant by more consistent results.  For some reason I found the opposite true, better stuff from muscle meat.   

[BBQIT]

My fault - I was trying to respond to the first post and responded to yours (the last one) by mistake, so I can see where it got confusing; sorry about that.  Chalk it up to my being a "rookie" on the Bradley forum...What I meant by more consistent results is that no matter how long you marinade whole muscle meat, you can't ever really get the flavor all the way through the meat (at least I've never been able to).  When you use ground meat, the spices are completely mixed with the meat (just like in sausage making).

[JF7FSU]

Ok I see what you mean.  My last several batches, I used Big John's Soy Ginger jerky recipe and it sure goes penetrates...lol.   Maybe it is the soy component that helps.  I recently made nuggets from the same recipe and it penetrated pretty good too.