First go at smoking jerky

No I didn't use any cures. I'm still new to making jerky so I'm not sure how everyone does things. I've seen people marinade, cure, season and a mixture. this is basically a trial run for me so i did a small amount of each type to see the results. The book I have on smoking is the only one that explains making jerky, but only gives recipes doesn't explain a lot of the how to. any suggestions or tips would be welcome

Thanks!

So far so good, a few of the smaller pieces are done and they came out great, the bigger pieces that were marinated will take at least the full 6 hours. Was tricky at first getting the temp down below 200* luckily the door on my smoker has a moveable latch so I was able to keep the door slightly open and its been at a steady 150 which is great. Meat picked up great smoke flavor, and the Indian spice marinade and rub both taste really great!

So if I'm smoking below 180 I should add a cure? and is that only for the meat that I used the rub on or should it be added in the marinade. I haven't done much with curing yet

Awesome, thank you so much, the temps really help, I'll try that next time. The book I got some recipes out of didn't mention cure 1. Whenever it mentioned a cure it was just a salt based rub. I will start using it though because I have some friends I want to start selling it to so keeping it longer would be good.  It took me a while to get my smoker that low, but I smoked it at 150 and used smoke for the first 3 hours or so. I think it will be difficult to get it much lower than that. I had it on the lowest heat setting and had the door cracked open and it held 150 beautifully but I don't know if i can get it lower than that. It was in the smoker for 6 hours then I brought it upstairs to finish it in the oven at 180*. I live on the second floor and I did this for a number of reasons. when I prepared the meat I didn't have time to partially freeze it so i cut it free hand. I matched the sizes together so they would finish about the same time. After 6 hours there were a few pieces that weren't done, so it was partially being lazy after 6 hours of running up and down to check I decided to bring it up so I could just keep an eye on it more easily.

It came out great and everyone really loved it. Had great flavor, all of them really came out great and had a nice smoke flavor. It's pretty much all gone already and I only have a few small things I would tweak with the recipe. Here's a couple rubs that I've been using.

Texas heat rub

1/4 cup salt

1/4 cup ground peppercorn

1/8 cup paprika

1 1/2 Tbs chili powder

1 Tbs cayenne

1 Tbs garlic powder

1/2 Tbs onion powder

1/2 Tbs cumin

1/2 Tbs thyme

pinch cilantro

I put this rub on the night before. It was hot and spicy but had great flavor. Mild initial spice then it crept in. I loved it because after eating a piece of it there was a  nice warming feeling left over.

Indian Spice Rub

People loved this on the jerky, I wasn't sure how it would turn out but it was a huge hit. This is a similar curry blend I use when I make chicken Korma. I'm going to try some different experiments with the marinade, but the spice blend is perfect.

1/2 tsp. black salt

1 Tbs kosher salt

2 Tbs garlic salt

2 Tbs Brown sugar

1 Tbs black mustard seed ground

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp cumin

1 1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp corriander

dash cinnamon, clove, nutmeg

For a marinade - Use sour cream or yogurt for a base, mix a good amount of the rub into the cream. you should be able to taste the seasonings. Marinate over night, pat dry, and I sprinkled a small amount of rub on it prior to smoking.

I didn't get a lot of pictures unfortunately. I only got some pre-smoking and didn't get a picture of the end product.