Beef jerkey

Brasrep

How do you smoke beef jerkey on the BGE

nolaegghead

This is just me - I like my jerky smoked and dehydrated but not cooked. 

Many people have made it on the egg with reported excellent results.  You can skewer or lay it on the grate and smoke at as low a temp you can maintain. 

Another alternative is to smoke it using something like the A-maze-n pellet smoker, which will give you smoke without much heat, in the egg or any grill, then dehydrate.  You can dehydrate using the open door oven method, a grate and a fan or a food dehydrator.  I did a couple of batches (about 5 pounds) using the oven method and people said it was the best they'd ever had.  I didn't smoke it at all.

FanOfFanboys

Naked whiz has a good article on his site. Very helpful. *Edit here it is http://www.nakedwhiz.com/coldsmoking/coldsmokejerky.htm

burr_baby33

I have made it with pretty good results. Kroger had what they called "stir fry strips" of beef. Marinated it overnight with kroger brand steak marinade.  Set up egg indirect with mesquite chunks and added DP steak rub.  Stacked 2 or 3 smaller grids with bricks and cooked/smoked for approx 3 - 4 hours at around 225.  Gave some to my son who makes it a lot with his own special recipe and dehydrator. He loved it.  Simple.

fishlessman

if your new to holding temps below 200 use the mound method. richard post gfw's method in this link, the marinade is a good starting place as well, no need to buy a cure mixture.
http://eggheadforum.com/discussion/759583/river-city-jerky-recipe

Outlaw77

I've been using these throw away grids. They are excellent for jerky.

nolaegghead

Last time I made it, I made a a dry cure.  I don't like sweet jerky.  There's a little sugar in this from the DP rub, but very little.  This recipe is one I came up with that gives you a very beefy tasting, traditional jerky.  Dry cured rather than wet.  It desiccates much faster also, because you're not evaporating all the additional moisture of a marinade.

3 parts DP Cow Lick
1 part salt
2 parts pepper
1 part garlic powder
1.2 grams/pound of raw meat of pink salt - Prague #1

Adjust the ratios and ingredients to suit your tastes, but don't adjust the pink salt to meat weight ratio.

Froze the meat most of the way, cut between 1/8" to 1/4" slices across the grain (as long as it's consistent) on the meat slicer.  Meat should be trimmed of most fat, or all of it if you plan on storing unrefrigerated for a long time (never happens, get's eaten in days).

I sprinkle, trying to distribute the seasoning equally (using up the correct amount of pink salt) on one side of the meat.  I stack the seasoned meat on some plastic wrap, stacking the each piece seasoning side up so the piece below seasons the bottom of the piece above it.

Then I wrap up the big pile of seasoned meat, and throw it in the fridge for overnight up to a few days later, to let the nitrite evenly distribute.

Then smoke and dry.  It's much better if it doesn't cook.  Over-drying it will ruin it. 

If you have a consistent thickness in the slices, it'll be done at the same time.  Otherwise, you'll be pulling off the thinner pieces sooner, or they'll just be too dry.

IMHO, this makes a better jerky than anything I've ever bought.  The dry cure method is how it was traditionally made in the field - cut thin strips, salt, dry.  Add whatever seasonings you had available.  You can dry it on a warm day in the shade (make sure you have lots of pepper), or in your house with a fan.  There's a lot of leeway in making it.

ChokeOnSmoke

My technique from a couple years ago:

About 3 1/2 lbs. of Top Round sliced at 1/4". Ended up with about 1 1/2 lbs. after shrinkage. I used the DigiQ set to 165. Worked great. Marinated for about a day. Started taking jerky off the top rack after about 3 hours. Stuff on the bottom took a total of 6 hours. Next time I'll rotate the racks throughout the cook as we all know it is hotter at the top. Overall it turned out really good.

Thanks for looking.

nolaegghead

Looks tasty.  I was tempted to trumpet the low-temp abilities of stoker systems (have a DigiQ myself).  But haven't gone lower than 180 (pastrami).  I'm very near experimenting with cold-smoking with the DigiQ.  I'll post that soon, hopefully this weekend, but nice that you could hold 165.  I was thinking about another technique - rigging up a paint can or tube with fuel and damping down the DigiQ where the forced air keeps a very confined fire burning, where it would act like a candle and even reach lower temps.