- Dec 22, 2016
- 14
- 12
Well I have made plenty of jerky in dehydrators and it has always turned out great. I have tried using ground meat and using the jerky gun but if its not mixed right or moist enough it does not come out right. So i tend to use hole muscle meat from my deer and have used some beef milanesa cut before and it was a hit. I dont have my own special recipe and have tried different seasonings and i have settled on one made by REO Spice here in Texas. It is very good and i usally have to much of it and it gets to old:( Oh well just cause its a lil old doesnt make it bad just may not be as strong so i just added more;) So hopefully it turns out good. I usually add a little more garlic powder plus Fiesta Brand Cure then i use Fiesta Brand Coarse Black pepper on the second side and put it in my marrinating dishes for 2-3 days. Oh yeah this time i gave it a light sprinkle of Grub Rub for a little bit of a sweet taste;) Well i started hanging it this morning being that it was nice and cold somewhere in the upper 20's which is way cold for South Texas;) I was letting it hang and dry out, which most of it was dry except the meat that was in the bottom of my dishes. So as it hung i was splitting wood and getting the fire going. After about an hour and a half i got the coals going and started to get heat little by little. I had hell this morning due to trying to start the fire outside my fire barrel then just transfer coals, it wasn't working great due to the wind picking up so i had to cheat and get some charcoal going then get a good fire in the fire barrel. It took me almost 2 hours to get the temp up to 90 degrees then i tried to maintain 90-100 degrees for the rest of the morning. After about 4 or so hours it jumped up to around in the 120's so i tried to hold that then just bump it up here and there. As the wind died down i was able to get more temp and actually hold it better. Being that i used pallets for my smoke house it breathes very nice but strong wind forces air inside the only downfall. For my smoke i have been using my amazn smoke tubes. I bought the expandable ones small and large one. I was going to use one but for the size of my smoke house while breaking it in and using the small tube i just didnt see enough smoke so i have been using both all day with the pecan pellets. I have had them going and filled them twice so its been getting decent smoke for about 8 hours. Now i am just using my good mesquite wood to keep a fire going and trying not to get to much smoke from it and have the temp up to about 160. I think im going to keep it there for several hours more cause my cuts were fairly thick from using my jerky boards deepest cut. The meat now for some of the smaller cuts is perty dry but the ones that got thick still bend a little easy. I am tring not to get it super dry as i usually do in the dehydrator cause then its hard as heck to eat and i really want to enjoy this jerky;) My plan is to leave it hanging all night being that it should drop to upper 20's again then sometime in the morning after we go hunt pull it out and bag it up. The cold dry air should help dry it out overnight and hopefully it will be just right. Dont really know till you try. Well here are some pics of what i have so far. Thanks for reading.
