With all of the delicious recipes for Beef jerky that are floating around it is difficult to just stick with a single recipe to use.  Some are dried in the oven, some in a dehydrator, and some are smoked dried.  For this recipe I am going to do a side by side comparison and do half in my electric smoker and half in my dehydrator.  I tend to just do all of it in the dehydrator normally, and add a little smoke flavoring to the brine.  This is my all time favorite recipe for making jerky.  It does have some curing salt in it so anyone that is concerned about having nitrates they can leave it out.  It doesn’t change the flavor of the jerky but does make it last longer if you plan on multi-day trips.  The sodium nitrate in it helps prevent the growth of bacteria. This recipe is set for only one pound of meat but can easily be scaled up as needed.  The amount of curing salt will seem high to anyone that has experience in curing meats, but since this is a brine recipe more is needed.

Ingredients needed:

• 1 lb of lean beef (any lean wild game can be used also)

Marinade:

• 1 1/2 tsp of pickling salt (or any salt without added iodine)
• 1/4 tsp Prague Powder #1 (I added a link here since I have never seen this sold locally)
• 1/4 tsp ground Coriander
• 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/4 tsp Onion powder
• 1/2 tsp liquid smoke (mesquite or hickory work well)
• 1 1/2 tsp ground back pepper (if you would like a stronger kick feel free to add more)
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup of water

how to put it all together for delicious jerky:

1. Make sure you trim all visible fat from your meat. if anything goes bad first it meat with a high fat content that goes rancid.
2. Mix ingredients for marinade together in a glass bowl or plastic container.  Most marinades are acidic and will start breaking down a metal bowl (and aluminum is a very bad thing to eat)
3. Cut meat into strips going with the grain.  You can cut it against the grain but it tends to break and get very crumbly.  the strips should be about 1/4 inch thick.  any bigger and it takes longer to dry.
4. Marinade for 6-24 hours in the refrigerator.  I normally just leave it in over night so around 12ish hours
5. Finally dry for around 7 hours at 160 degrees in a dehydrator.  For the half I put into the smoker it took 10 hours to finish.

• Masterbuilt electric smoker
• NESCO FD-80A, Square-Shaped Dehydrator.
• Jerky making video 

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