Ground beef jerky doneness

First, you want to make sure the IT is 160F.  Personally, when I smoke GB jerky, I use a slightly higher temp of 175F just for safety, but that could just be me.

I don't use a dehydrator.  I use my smoker.  Once again, doneness is a personal preference.  After I check the temp, I pick up a piece in the middle and see how much it bends.  I like it to be relatively stiff with only a minor sag.  If it bends a lot, I leave it on the smoker.   

Oh wait, I almost posted a photo of cut jerky then it hit me GB not whole muscle..... Duh....

The done-ness test is somewhat similar though.  It should bend and not "snap or crack" in half, but just start to tear with an extreme bend.  I usually make my GB jerky into "rounds" instead of strips. I like the rustic chip look.  Here are some jerky rounds I made a while back, but I don't have a "bend test" photo.  These were dehydrator rounds.  As thin as GB jerky is, in any decent dehydrator hitting that safe 152* point (you are using cure #1, right) is not hard and most electric dehydrators will run in the 160*-170* range when maxed out.  I usually run mine similar to the way I would smoke jerky strips (whole meat) in the smoker.  Start at 125* for an hour to set the meat, crank to 140* for a couple of hours and then to 160* to finish.

As mentioned earlier you will want to do a bend test on it.

Everything I read when learning how to do ground jerky states that when it starts to break it is ready.  This doesn't mean snap just that it is showing breakage.

Another tip, the jerky will continue to dry and get more brittle after you pull it out so if you have good breakage signs then when it is rested you will have greater breakage.  SO I learned to pull my ground jerky at the first/minimal signs of obvious breakage during the bend test.  Once it rests for a while you will see that this approach will break on a bend test but will definitely never snap and gives a good consistency between dryness and softness.

Best of luck and welcome to the world of ground jerky!!! :)

Looks fantastic!

Great job, i'll be checking my mail for some :P