Ground Beef Jerky & Whole Strip Jerky Questions

[galahir950]

I am new to smoking, but not new to jerky making. We have always used the Nesco jerky kit and our Nesco dehydrator to make the jerky. We have almost exclusively used lean ground beef, but we have dabbled in "whole jerky." We were going to make flank steak jerky and ground beef jerky this weekend in our smoker, but I need some advice. How much will the time vary between the 1/4-1/6 inch thick whole jerky strips and the ground beef strips? We use the jerky strip attachment on our jerky gun but we need to know the best vessel for our ground beef jerky. Can I use an enamel broiler rack that will fit on my smoker rack to hold my ground beef jerky? It looks like the jerky racks you can buy online. I just was wondering if I would run into any issues. My smoker's instructions say not to use glassware, ceramics, or plastics, but makes no mention of Enamel. I own a #32930 Master Forge Electric Smoker.

Regards, 
Ryan

 

[dougmays]

hey ryan,

since your doing whole strips you dont necessarily need to put them on a broiler rack, you can lay them directly on your grill racks or hang them with toothpicks in them and hung between the slates in your rack.

As for time that can very...i generally just go by the rule of thumb of when i bend them if they crack slightly but not to brittle they are good to go.

hope that helps some
 

 

[galahir950]

Thanks for the help, do you have any idea about the ground beef jerky?

Regards,
Ryan

 

[s2k9k]

I've never made ground jerky but maybe this might help:

http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/search.php?search=ground+beef+jerky

Don't forget to use the search bar at the top when you are looking for fast answers to your questions.

 

[dougmays]

ditto i've never done ground
 

 

[basstronics]

Ive only done ground jerky.

Ive dabbled with different heat and amounts of time. I think Ive settled on 165F and 12 Hrs with a full head on mix on my AMZNPS. I mix my own pellets by guessing, so no recipe of pellets. I usually do two handfuls of oak, hickory, 1 of cherry and 1 of mesquite.

I like a good dry and strong jerky.