Would appreciate any recipes you have for beef jerky (or turkey or anything else, although I have no wild game on hand).

My wife gave me a Big Chief smoker and I've been experimenting around, with varied success.

I'd especially like to hear about any recipes that tend toward a sweet, smoky flavor.

What do you think about thickness? so far I've had the most luck with thicker cuts--they don't seem to dry out as much, but are still . . . jerky.

I'm still in the learning curve on the time it takes to finish a batch without turning it inti shoe leather. So far I've discovered about 4 hours and two pans of wood chips seems about right.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Nitro, I have a Little Chief and got reasonable results with the recipes that came with the smoker. I say reasonable because I have not done enough beef or venison jerky to be consistent, with the worst results being too dry or too salty. Uniform thickness is worth striving for, and I believe, thinner rather than thicker
I had better luck smoking salmon and kokanee in this smoker -- as in fistfights break out when a batch is done.
Hope you get her dialed -- and report!

O.K. I do NOT give this one an A1 but it worked for me + was quite good.I sliced my venison thin then put all the slices in Worchestershire sauce to soak overnight,then covered with black pepper,put into the oven at +160 degrees;anything under will cause the meat to rot.It will make a good long smoking turkey or whatever,but the results are fabulois.

Randy, Dad used to mix Worcester, soy, sugar and Wright's Liquid Smoke and do the same thing -- oven on low, door open until so dry it snapped. You had to suck on a piece for a while to get it to soften up, but I suspect that's a bit more like the real item was back a couple of centuries ago. Kind of a high-protein all-day sucker.

I told my youngest son (he's 39) I was making jerky and he asked if I could make him some peppered jerky with low or no salt and no sugar - he's pre-diabetic and on a fairly strict diet.

Any advice on how to make what he wants without it turning into shoe leather?

Thanks, guys!

I built a smoker out of an old Norge frig. 45 years ago. I smoked a lot of turkeys in it but I made allowance for a water tray above the coals;w/ a thermo in the door above the smoking chips/dust.The water tray will bring more moisture into the end product.Just remember that the maximum detrachune of moisture is the #1 point of jerky as an item of edible longevity.

I like this one - my own recipe (sorry, I used metric units)

You will need:

Flank steak 600 g

Curing salt 10 g (In our country it is already mixed with salt for proper ratio. If you use concentrated curing salt #1, you need about 1 g of that plus 9 g of common salt)

Cardamom 2 g
Coriander 2 g
Dried garlic powder 2 g
Green pepper 4 g
Dark cane sugar 10 g

Liquid smoke 4 g
Water 60 ml (g)

Mix all spices together and grind it. In 60 ml of water, dissolve 4 g of liquid smoke and mix it will all spices, salt and sugar. Mix properly with meat cuts and let it in fridge 48 hours. It is preferred to use vacuum packer.

Dry it in slightly open oven on 72 degrees C over night.




P.S.

All is measured in the same units, so use whatever units you want a and ratio will be fine. It is more spicy version, if you want less spicy version, use only 1/2 to 2/3 of spices, but same sugar and salt.

P.S.2: I used professional grade liquid smoke (concentrated). If you use "supermarket grade", use what you are used to.

Jiri

there is a million recipes for Jerky, most are good..real jerky is sun air dried meat, spiced or not and its very good..Most jerky today is smoked, and cut thin like bacon and I don't care for it..I like stripes of meat about an inch thick and cut with the grain as opposed to cross grain cuts and smoked with mesquite root. I like different spices depending..The stuff bought in the stores is thin and kinda like burnt Kleenex IMO...I also remove all fat and senue and silverskin..pure meat..

Africa, Mexico, So. Texas Southern New Mexico are the chili and Jerky kingdoms..