How not to do beef jerky....

[Michael]

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...

[Dougsts]

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.

[asa]

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.

[Oldman]

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