MES Jerky....first time

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mrsmoklestein

Smoke Blower
Original poster
May 10, 2014
77
21
Fond du Lac, WI
I've smoked a lot of things on my MES30 (I have the analog version, modified with more vent holes on the top and a better door therm), but I've never done jerky. Had butcher slice up 2 lbs of eye of round in 1/4" strips with the grain today. Going to try making some using my amnps and I'm thinking around 150F???? I've seen some posts about 200F and some as low as 120F. Going to be doing it with coconut aminos (glorified soy sauce) as the wife is on a low carb kick lol.

Thinking 2/3 cup aminos, 1/4 cup worsesshire, seasonings....marinade 24 hours.

Any experience with roughly how long It'll take at 150? Smoke the entire time or only a few hours?
 
start off at 110 degrees.
fire up the AMPS, and get the pellets going.
wait about 2 hours, because the moisture from the meat is going to be crazy present.
Hour 3: Ramp up temp to 130.
Hour 4: Ramp up to 145
Hour 5: Ramp up to 165
20 minutes into Hour 5, start checking the meat to see where its at. This is where you finish off to the texture you want. Do a "Bend Test."
If you bend the jerky, and it cracks along the bend, your right where you need to be.
If it doesn't crack, you can check again in 10 minutes. Or you can pull it out, and throw in a paper bag or on some butcher paper.
Pulling early will give you a chewy jerky.
Letting it finish til it cracks will give you a tougher jerky.

I am assuming that your putting some form of Cure in the seasonings.

Good Luck.
 
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start off at 110 degrees.
fire up the AMPS, and get the pellets going.
wait about 2 hours, because the moisture from the meat is going to be crazy present.
Hour 3: Ramp up temp to 130.
Hour 4: Ramp up to 145
Hour 5: Ramp up to 165
20 minutes into Hour 5, start checking the meat to see where its at. This is where you finish off to the texture you want. Do a "Bend Test."
If you bend the jerky, and it cracks along the bend, your right where you need to be.
If it doesn't crack, you can check again in 10 minutes. Or you can pull it out, and throw in a paper bag or on some butcher paper.
Pulling early will give you a chewy jerky.
Letting it finish til it cracks will give you a tougher jerky.

I am assuming that your putting some form of Cure in the seasonings.

Good Luck.
No cure, I planned on storing the leftovers in the fridge.

So you're saying put the AMNPS in after two hours?...and leave it the entire time?
 
When I do my eye of round jerky, I will smoke it for just the first two hours at around 160 , then finishing cooking it at similar temp in the dehydrator for 4 more hours. I do not smoke it for the entire 6 hours for it would be way too smokey for me. Always comes out mucho perfecto. Oh and I brine it for 24 hours first. If I didn't have a dehydrator, I would probably do similar hours and temps in the smoker.
 
Last edited:
I'd smoke for the first 2 hours. After that, it'd be ALOT of smoke for the meat to take on, and you run the risk of over-smoking it to the point that you've just make edible smoke pucks.
 
No cure, I planned on storing the leftovers in the fridge.

So you're saying put the AMNPS in after two hours?...and leave it the entire time?

Cure protects meats smoked/cooked at low temps for long periods of time like bacon, sausage, and jerky. It also helps with a longer life in the fridge but you would want to eat it up cured jerky within a week or two even in the fridge or freeze cause it won't preserve the jerky forever.

Since u are not using cure I would recommend u start a smoker temp of 160F and then work up to 200F to ensure the meat is getting an internal temp of 165F or higher to keep it safe since there is no cure.

Store what u can eat up within a week in the fridge and be sure to freeze the rest. This again is because no cure is used to help preserve the jerky.

I use cure and I run my jerky up to 200F cause it just goes faster if the smoker is loaded up. I rotate the racks as needed and going up to 200F doesn't hurt anything at all so I don't fret over it.

I don't apply smoke on jerky for more than 3 hours, it doesnt need that much smoke. I use the AMNPS and it produces perfect smoke so 3 hours of Thin Blue Smoke (TBS) isn't the same as 3 hours of smoke form a stick burner or something that does not have such a tight smoke generation control. Also know that I don't do 100% hickory cause it makes stuff taste too much like bacon to me so max I go with hickory is 70-75% and it does well. Mix and match your woods and do the amount of smoke time u will be happy with.

I hope this info helps :)
 
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