Well, here is the start of the jerky season. Don't know why, but always seem to make more jerky when it is cold outside. I usually marinade for 24-48 hours in the spice and liquid with a cure and then I put some rub on top before it goes on the smoker. I smoke for about 2 hours at 180°-200° depending upon the pellet grill I use and then 160° in the dehydrator for about 3-4 hours.
12/18/18 pork jerky cook - mostly Frank's Stingin Honey Garlic marinade with some Cabela's rubs on top before cooking (Pecan Honey, Maple Jalapeno, Maple Bacon Bourbon Chipotle) and some Teriyaki without any rub on top.
12/22/18 deer hind quarter - split into a 3rd each of a store bought seasoning Memphis marinade with some pecan honey rub on top, store bought inferno seasoning with some maple bacon bourbon chipotle on top, and garlic pepper in water marinade with garlic pepper on top
My brother, my buddy, and me will split the pork jerky. The deer jerky was from a hind quarter another buddy shot about a month ago. He paid a ransom to have jerky made for him a few years ago so I told him I could to it for much less and hopefully better tasting.
There is about 4# of jerky in each cook.
I am probably cooking about 50# (meat weight before trimming and dehydrating) of beef on Monday and Thursday for jerky. It is nice to have the last two weeks of the year off of work and clean out my freezers of the meat I bought on sale over the last 3-6 months.
Seems like I am doing something every day on vacation - cut meat, marinade, smoke/dehydrate...repeat. Funny, how fast it goes when people want 3# net weight of jerky at a time. If all goes well, I will make about 100# of gross weight meat into jerky over these last few weeks of December.
Bentley, you can move this into the "Cooking" section if you want. Please give it until the end of the year as I think it will get more visibility in this section until then. Thanks!
If anyone has any questions on the process, fire away. I love to help out where I can. It is pretty easy to make great jerky at least 1/3 less than store bought stuff if you have the right equipment.