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View Full Version : Jerking - Revisited (cry for help)



grundle
05-02-2008, 11:07 AM
Hello fellow jerks, or jerkers, err..well it just doesn't sound right no matter how I put it.

I read the other thread on jerking meat and I got all fired up about it, but I seen the fancy smoke houses y'all got and perplexed myself just a tad. Now I understand you can jerk meat in an oven which sounds great to me, but my oven up and decided to quit on me nigh two months ago. Its been high livin' off the crock pot and burners since then.

I was wondering if I could jerk meat with my fancy grill that looks like this

http://www.megabbq.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/char-broil_doubledoor.jpg

So then, I figure I will have to put my coals on the lower cannister and have the meat up on the tube portion. The part I am unsure about is the fuel combination I will need to keep it from getting too hot, as well as an additive to make sure there is plenty of smoke. Traditionally I have always used charcoal for my fuel and wet hickory chips to give it the smoke. I have also noticed that after a while it will burn hotter after I add the hickory. I know that with a little flue adjustment I can moderate it, but I also want to hear about what you guys might do?

Oh one more thing that comes to mind. I remember reading that the meat should be in a constant heat for about 8 hours. How do you manage that with a grill?

grundle
05-02-2008, 03:10 PM
Please any quick advice? I'm gonna try this weekend, thought maybe I'd get a few hits before I left work ><

Ridge Wolf
05-02-2008, 04:56 PM
Well, I have never made jerky before.. Common sense though indicates that you would want to keep the meat as far away from the heat 'source' as possible... maybe off center if you're having your heat source directly under it. The more smoke the better.. Indian tribes in history have smoked meat and salmon over an open fire hung on racks way up over the fire to have a large space between the two.

for your application, I would use some sort of separator between the fire and the meat so as not to actually cook it if you know what I mean.

Question? You haven't googled this enough to find out your answer? Also consider that there are probably quite a few posts or threads on this forum utilizing the search box on here to find your answer.

Here is a thread on here that will help ya. http://www.wilderness-survival.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2343&highlight=jerky

Sorry for the generalities.. but, as I said, I haven't done it before.

grundle
05-02-2008, 05:02 PM
I have a pretty good sense of what I am doing, but as far as jerking meat goes almost everywhere I have looked have talked about either using a cold smoke (as in the threads on this forum) a dehydrator, which I don't have, or an oven, of which mine is broken.

I am fairly confident that the setup of my grill is basically separating the flame from the meat since the coals go in that lower cannister. I was hoping someone else had tried it before.

I have gone through the search box and fortunately I have found most of the information I wanted. Recipes, how to cut the meat, and many awesome ideas. I just don't know how to regulate a coal fire over many hours, and I am not sure about my options for smoking wood (aside from hickory that is :P )

Ridge Wolf
05-02-2008, 05:04 PM
I have a pretty good sense of what I am doing, but as far as jerking meat goes almost everywhere I have looked have talked about either using a cold smoke (as in the threads on this forum) a dehydrator, which I don't have, or an oven, of which mine is broken.

I am fairly confident that the setup of my grill is basically separating the flame from the meat since the coals go in that lower cannister. I was hoping someone else had tried it before.

I have gone through the search box and fortunately I have found most of the information I wanted. Recipes, how to cut the meat, and many awesome ideas. I just don't know how to regulate a coal fire over many hours, and I am not sure about my options for smoking wood (aside from hickory that is :P )

PM or email Braggsurvivor... He does it.

Rick
05-02-2008, 08:26 PM
You don't need smoke. I suppose you could use it if you wanted to but I've never smoked jerky. I cooked up 2 lbs yesterday. I set the oven at 175F and it was done in five hours. I have no idea how you would control the heat on a charcoal grill. You'd have better luck with a gas grill. The key is the flow of low heat over an extended time.

Here's my recipe if you want to try it:

Beef Jerky
2 lbs. of flank steak
2/3 cup of soy sauce
2/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons of seasoning salt (recommend Lawry's)
Slice flank steak diagonally with the grain of the meat into very thin slices (If slightly frozen it slices more easily). Combine ingredients and marinate meat overnight or 12 hours. Be sure all pieces are covered (coated) with marinade. Drain excess marinade. Place meat on paper towels to soak up marinade. Meat should be squeezed as dry as possible in paper towels. Place individual pieces of meat on rack in oven at 140 to 160 degrees for seven to 12 hours, or until meat is dry throughout. Leave oven door ajar (slightly open) during the drying process. Meat can also be hung in the oven by placing a wooden toothpick in each piece and strung from the rack. Store finished jerky in an airtight container. It keeps for several months, but it is likely that it will be consumed by the master hunter, kids, or the cook within a few days.

Omid
05-04-2008, 10:11 AM
You have a lot of good recipies Rick... ever think of making a book?

Rick
05-04-2008, 10:15 AM
I did but the police told me being a bookie was against the law. Who knew?

crashdive123
05-04-2008, 01:00 PM
I've been booked before.:D

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 03:54 PM
You can use rump roast and "eye of rounds" if you see the on sale. Flank is a bit to pricey for me around here even at Sam's Club. I use rumps.

You can get you some liquid smoke and add just a tiny bit to your marinade. Hickory or mesquite, they are both pretty good. Don't over do it on the liquid smoke or you'll mess it up big time. Use "eye dropper" amounts.
Rick's marinade recipe is pretty close to what I use, so I can't add anything to it other than maybe some "Durkee's Six Pepper Blend", which I got at Sam's Club, but didn't see any the last time I was there.

Ridge Wolf
05-04-2008, 05:33 PM
I did but the police told me being a bookie was against the law. Who knew?

Hmmm, If you do it right Rick.. You could end up on the Oprah show or Rachael Ray... even better. :D

Alpine_Sapper
05-04-2008, 06:16 PM
Hmmm, If you do it right Rick.. You could end up on the Oprah show or Rachael Ray... even better. :D

Yeah, you couldn't get me on Oprah. Rachael, on the other hand....*drool* :D:D

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 06:56 PM
Yeah, you couldn't get me on Oprah. Rachael, on the other hand....*drool* :D:D

Naw man... Giada De Laurentiis for the win!

Alpine_Sapper
05-04-2008, 07:18 PM
Naw man... Giada De Laurentiis for the win!

She is so hot...then she opens her mouth. "spagheeeteee" *WHACK*

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 07:39 PM
She is so hot...then she opens her mouth. "spagheeeteee" *WHACK*

As opposed to "Yummo", "EVOO" and "Delish"? hehe...

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 07:46 PM
I have a pretty good sense of what I am doing, but as far as jerking meat goes almost everywhere I have looked have talked about either using a cold smoke (as in the threads on this forum) a dehydrator, which I don't have, or an oven, of which mine is broken.

I am fairly confident that the setup of my grill is basically separating the flame from the meat since the coals go in that lower cannister. I was hoping someone else had tried it before.

I have gone through the search box and fortunately I have found most of the information I wanted. Recipes, how to cut the meat, and many awesome ideas. I just don't know how to regulate a coal fire over many hours, and I am not sure about my options for smoking wood (aside from hickory that is :P )



Another alternative is a hot plate with a little cast iron box for wood. I use that a lot in my one smoking cabinet when I don't turn the burner on.

Rick
05-04-2008, 07:48 PM
What brand of hot plate do you have? I've read quite a bit about folks having trouble with their hot plating cycling because it gets too hot. Walgreen's seems to be well liked while Wally World's seems to be disliked.

There are even blueprints on the net showing how to disable to thermal lockout.

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 07:54 PM
I've had mine about 5 or 6 years. Can't remember if I got it from Walmart or the local grocery store on a whim one day when I needed it. Anyway, it's a Toastmaster and looks like this. http://www.everythingkitchens.com/toastmaster_range_burner_6420.html

I've never had a problem with it. It's cold smoked so much salmon I can't even begin to recall as well as used it to initially get my sausage to smoking before I turn on the burner.
I have a big cast iron box and set it right on the coils.

Rick
05-04-2008, 07:57 PM
I have a small cast iron box and I could set the plate on the lowest rack then the box on it. Thanks!

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 08:01 PM
Rick, here's what I do where as wood chips/chunks are concerned. I get both, small chips and large chunks. Not sure if it will work in a small iron box, but it does in mine.
I load the bottom with the smaller chips, then neatly put the big chunks in maximizing space to get as many as I can. Then I pour more smaller chips on top which fall between the chunks.
The theory behind that is that the smaller chips on bottom get going faster and they in turn start getting the bigger ones hotter and hotter. I get some really good smoke sessions going on when I do that.

Rick
05-04-2008, 08:10 PM
I'm a panty waist when it comes to clean up. I soak my wood about 20 minutes then cup it (not wrap, just make like a cup) in aluminum foil. My smoke (wood) box has vents below to let it draft and the foil allows the air from the burner to draft up through the smoke box. The foil keeps everything nice and tidy for clean up.

About the most smoke time I get on one load of wood is 30-40 minutes. I don't pack the smoke box full but I have quite a bit in there. Only one layer though. I might try to rearrange my stack a bit to see if I can increase the smoke time.

Tahyo
05-04-2008, 08:15 PM
I never soak my wood. I've seen people wrap their wood in tin foil and I hear it works pretty good, but I never did.
Last weekend when I smoked that pork, I had so much wood chips/chunks in that box it stuck up almost 2". I had to balance the iron grate that goes on top.
Put as much wood chips as you can in there Rick and for the next few hours, keep putting it in.
You'll know you have it right when you tear into that meat and find that pink smoke ring around the outside.

grundle
05-05-2008, 10:21 AM
I did my 8 hour smoke on Saturday. My pop donated a briscuit for this project. I took half of it and sliced it up for jerking. Rick I used your marinade recipe for the jerky. When I was done soaking the meat, I kept the marinate and added tobasco and a delicious dark beer for my mop.

I learned a lot about smoking this first time. The jerky came out great, I was extremely happy with it. The big hunk of briscuit didn't turn out like I wanted it to. When I finished it was extremely chewy so it was hard to eat. My suspicion is that I undercooked the entire time. Once I got a good bed of coals going I would add a coal or two every half hour or so when I also added some more chips to keep the smoke up.

I also turned the briscuit and basted it with more mop every hour. The taste of my meat is incredible, but I am wondering if the fat content was too high or I just didn't do something right in the cooking. Any new advice?

BTW Rick, that marinate is great! I don't think that jerky will last past 2 weeks.

Rick
05-05-2008, 03:50 PM
Remember that the marinade had raw meat sitting in it. So using it for a mop probably isn't the best thing to do. If there was any bacteria on the meat, it would get added to the marinade and then to your cooked meat. The best thing would be to just dump the marinade once you are done with it.

I'm glad the jerky turned out good. I haven't found anyone that doesn't like that recipe. It's just hard to beat.

Can't help with the brisket. I don't do charcoal. Did you have a thermometer to watch your temp? Once you open the cabinet/smoker/grill up there is a huge heat loss that takes some time to rebuild once you close it back up. For propane, the amount of time is pretty neglible but for charcoal you might be looking at ten minutes to come back up to temp. If you added every half hour you might have been opening the smoker too often to keep it at a steady temp. About the time it was right to start cooking you opened it back up. Just a guess on my part. A thermometer would sure tell the tale, though.

Rick
05-05-2008, 03:54 PM
Tahyo and Bragg - Okay, I had a long talk with a butcher today about pork shoulders and butts. Now, I'm not a butcher. I know what it says on the label. I asked him if he had any pork butts and he sort of eyed me funny. It kind of went like this.

You have one in your cart.

Huh? That's a shoulder.

Same thing.

What?

A butt and a shoulder are the same thing.

Well, color me stupid.

Okay. A picnic is the whole shoulder and trimmed up is a shoulder or a butt.

Now, not that I didn't believe the man. He knows his butts I'm sure. I've often been told I don't know my ...... well, we're talking pigs. So I looked it up on the internet. Shore 'nuff. Butts and shoulders are the same gig.

So, what are you boys cooking when you say butts and shoulders?

grundle
05-05-2008, 05:13 PM
Remember that the marinade had raw meat sitting in it. So using it for a mop probably isn't the best thing to do. If there was any bacteria on the meat, it would get added to the marinade and then to your cooked meat. The best thing would be to just dump the marinade once you are done with it.

I'm glad the jerky turned out good. I haven't found anyone that doesn't like that recipe. It's just hard to beat.

Can't help with the brisket. I don't do charcoal. Did you have a thermometer to watch your temp? Once you open the cabinet/smoker/grill up there is a huge heat loss that takes some time to rebuild once you close it back up. For propane, the amount of time is pretty neglible but for charcoal you might be looking at ten minutes to come back up to temp. If you added every half hour you might have been opening the smoker too often to keep it at a steady temp. About the time it was right to start cooking you opened it back up. Just a guess on my part. A thermometer would sure tell the tale, though.


Well I think you are absolutely right about the temperature. I didn't have a thermometer so I was just kinda guessing. It doesn't help that it is my first time smoking meat, but this is how you learn :)

On the upside, I only marinated my jerky for about 2 hours since I was in a huff to go ahead and try out smoking meat. I don't think bacteria was a problem, but I will keep that in mind for the next time when I decide to marinate over night. I really loved the additions of tobasco and beer by the way, it tasted sublime. With a final addition of some great barbecue sauce right when I was about to pull the meat (about 40 minutes before hand) gave it excellent flavour. Too bad I suck at smoking. The wife and I could have been eatin' good for 2 weeks straight.

crashdive123
05-05-2008, 06:15 PM
Keep in mind grundle that it isn't how long the raw meat touches the marinade, but rather the fact that it touched it at all.

Rick
05-05-2008, 06:27 PM
Crash is right on that. And I thought about trichinosis after I posted my message. All it takes is one nematode....

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/common/standard/transform.jsp?requestURI=/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/trichinosis.jsp

If you only marinaded for two hours, then you'll REALLY like it once you let it sit over night.

Don't be too hard on yourself about having troubles. We've all been there that's why we ask each other questions about what rub, marinade, etc. We're all looking for the perfect smoke.

Look for a Polder thermometer. This is the cheapest site I've found:

http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail