Joined the Jerky Club today

[smoker pete]

Joined the Jerky club today and done did me 9 lbs of Teriyaki Top Sirloin beef jerky ;D  Visited my local butcher, Fagundes Meats, and ordered 7 lbs of Top Sirloin marinated with Teriyaki which I picked up yesterday and threw in the fridge overnight.  I really enjoy patronizing my local butcher cause Frank and/or his staff always greets me by name and we have time to chew the fat and bounce ideas around.  Kind of like the old days  :) ;)  Another thing is I ordered 7 lbs and got 9 lbs ;D  Service like that is hard to find these days and these guys are butchers not meat cutters (not that there's anything wrong with that) like you find in your supermarkets.

So here's the 9 lbs marinaded and vacuum sealed by my butcher going into the fridge overnight.



The Top Sirloin was sliced with the grain and I spent a little time cutting them down to size.  Used 4 racks with Frog Mats and 4 Bradley Jerky Racks to double my OBS capacity.



With all the great recipes that the forum members have shared it was hard choosing who's method I would pick for my first batch of Jerky.  When all was said and done I selected NePaSmoKer's method.  I preheated to 140º and slapped the 4 double racks in the OBS for an hour.  Then bumped the PID to 150º and applied 5 pucks of Hickory.  After the 1.6 hours of Hickory smoke I bumped it up to 165º for the next 4 hours.

That's when things became interesting.  Rather than go to 165º the PID dropped to the low to mid 140s and struggled the rest of the way to maintain temperature and climb up.  Turns out that I experienced my second heating element failures in a short span of less than 2 weeks.  Here is what the Jerky looked like after the Hickory smoke was applied to it.

As per everyone's gracious information I rotated the racks top to bottom and front to back every hour.



Here's the money $$hot.  This is maybe 2/3 of the batch which I picked out and placed the remainder which consisted of 4 racks back into the OBS to cook a while longer.  Pulled the Jerky when they bent before they were overdone and broke or cracked.  In the whole batch I only had on piece which was overdone :)  Now they're resting in a brown paper bag overnight in the fridge.  Will vacuum seal them tomorrow.

[classicrockgriller]

Killer Jerky pete!

Very nice!

[SouthernSmoked]

Very Very Nice!

[Keymaster]

Thats a good lookin batch of Jerky!!!! :P :P :P

[NePaSmoKer]

Yeah Buddy

As these Yankees say up here  :D

[OU812]

Looookin gooood.  ;D

As these red necks say round here.  :D

[SoCalBuilder]

That's some fine looking jerky Pete! Too bad it won't last long. Did you manage to get all 9 lbs. in? I just turned my OBS into a 12 rack and look forward to loading the whole thing with jerky. I think it will be a long and busy day with rotation and such.

[smoker pete]

That's some fine looking jerky Pete! Too bad it won't last long. Did you manage to get all 9 lbs. in? I just turned my OBS into a 12 rack and look forward to loading the whole thing with jerky. I think it will be a long and busy day with rotation and such.

Yes SoCal I did manage to just barely squeeze 9 lbs on 8 racks.  That was why I had originally ordered 7 lbs cause I didn't have anything to gauge how much I could do in one batch.

The biggest issue I found with the rotation was taking the PID temp probe off the bottom rack during rotation and then reinstalling the probe on the new bottom rack.  I used my ET-732 probe clip to hold the PID probe.  Have always wondered why the PID does not come with a probe clip?!

Have fun with your jerky.  I know I'll be doing some again soon cause it won't last long ;D ;D

[jiggerjams]

That looks excellent Pete. Good luck trying to save some for Superbowl!!

[Friar_Tuck]

Excellent looking jerky there Pete!
Not sure it is a club though,,,,,, more like a support group  ;D
Jim

[DTAggie]

Mighty fine indeed

[Tenpoint5]

The Butcher wasn't being nice to you Pete. Hes asking for samples, and was making sure you had enough to give him a couple pieces. Looks like the jerky turned really good.

[smoker pete]

The Butcher wasn't being nice to you Pete. Hes asking for samples, and was making sure you had enough to give him a couple pieces. Looks like the jerky turned really good.

:D Funny you should bring that up Chris.  The Butcher actually jokingly asked for a sample.  I gladly dropped off an 8 oz sample yesterday to get their opinion since they make and sell jerky also.

It was an instant success.  One of the first things the staff all mentioned was the nice Hickory Smoke flavor.  Nothing like following in the footsteps of our forum members and taking the credit for a great smoke  ;D ;D 

[muebe]

Good looking meat Smoker Pete ;D

[OU812]

Wish we had a butcher round here you could talk to, there all d##ks when you try to talk with them.

Glad you found one that cares pete.