To get a head start on smoking meats for your jerky you will want to check out the post “Put This In Your Grill & Smoke It – Basics”
Juicy or Dry?
In this case because we are making Jerky there is no need to make a marinade or inject your meats (don’t read that wrong you still can) but the this will just make the dehydration process take longer in the end and the results are really not that profound. A good dry rub is up to you or if the recipe you chose describes a crust or dry rub, go for it!
Let’s Get Smokey!
We have been using a smoke tube and have been using wood chips for our adventures so far. Here is how we have been doing it:
- Preheat the grill to 165°F to 180°F *NOTE THESE TEMPS ARE FOR JERKY ONLY* You will need to work out the settings specific to your setup because there are a bunch of factors that will determine how much heat you need to provide. Our setup needs one burner to be lit and kept between 1/4 and 1/3 open to keep the above temps. So keep an eye on it. The reason this is important is that meat only takes smoke until it hits a certain temperature and then it develops a crust and the smoke it holds is cut down drastically.
- Place the meat on the upper rack of the grill, you know the one that the hot dogs usually get relegated to during the cookout. If it doesn’t fit then use the lower deck but the upper deck gets more concentrated flavors due to less air flow..
- Fill your smoke tube with pellets or wood chips of choice. Using a torch (or lighter if your patient) and light one end of the tube.
- Place smoke tube on the lower deck of the grill. (We put down a piece of foil under the tube to catch the ashes just to make clean up easier)
- Ensure the grill temp does not exceed the preheat temps as the meat will begin to cook and not take the smoke as well. Depending on various factors the smoke tube may keep the grill at this temp meaning that you might have to turn off the burner to the grill. *Be Vigilant*
- Smoke for 4-8 hours, see note about temps below*
- Remove the meat from the grill/smoker and follow the instructions for your favorite jerky recipe check out ours HERE
So what does this look like?
There are literally hundreds of configurations that can be used, here is ours. Note the burner that is on (if necessary) would be the one to the far left (under the smoke tube). This provides the indirect heat necessary to heat the meat. Under the smoke tube we have a piece of foil as mentioned above its because I’m lazy and don’t want to clean my grill for ash that falls down. If you have a charcoal grill there is no need but propane I’d find a way to catch as much as possible.
Go Forth & Get Smokey!
So there you have it. This is a down and dirty write up on how to smoke meats for Jerky but should be enough to get you off the ground. It’s in no way a comprehensive analysis but by using the info contained here you should have no issues making delicious jerky that looks like this…
**Temperatures in this how-to are NOT SUITABLE for consumption after the smoking process. The goal of this is to infuse the smoke flavor into the meat, NOT cook it, that will be achieved during the dehydration of your jerky.