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Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question #3668490 10/17/12 04:41 PM
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caldwelldeerhunter Offline OP
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I have made jerky for years with a food dehydrater wanting to make a change and use an electric smoker.
Anyone use one and are they good? Taste ect?
I don’t want a real smoker and have to check temps and such. wanting an electric one so will stay the same temperature and I can just add some wood chips to it for the smoke taste right?

Any help is appreachated Thanks


If I put my wife in a high fence will her rack get bigger?
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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: caldwelldeerhunter] #3668527 10/17/12 04:51 PM
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Bought a wine barrell electric smoker about 2 months ago and have used it about 5 times and love it. Cooks at a steady 225 degrees and can use wood chips or chunks. Main thing I'm playing with is how much wood to use for the right smoke flavor. Doesnt take much to create lots of smoke. Havnt done jersey yet though.


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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: pittdog33] #3669081 10/17/12 08:03 PM
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I have both. While I love my electric smoker for cooking meats of all kinds, I still prefer my dehydrator for jerky, and that's all I use it for. Maybe its just what I'm used to after years of use. My dehydrator has plenty of trays, I can use it inside under the range hood vent, and it is much easier for me to pull off jerky as its done, as it never finishes all together and requires several unloads until its all off the rack. Plus my smoker racks are like oven racks and don't hold the smaller pieces so you have to get finer mesh trays to use. The live smoke taste did not make me like it as much as my dehydrator jerky.

Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: Scoop] #3670151 10/18/12 02:23 AM
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Never made jerky with it, but i love my electric smoker. I have ised it smoke deer, turkey, chicken, beef and vegies. I have also made a pretty tasty summer sausage. Sure jerky would be great. Dont think you will regret getting an electric smoker.

Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: jab3006] #3671362 10/18/12 03:11 PM
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Love my little electric smoker for jerky. Set time and temp and pretty much forget about it. I do add more mesquite chips once during the smoking process. It must be could I can't keep it around once it is made. My boy goes to town on in.

Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: westtexaswatkins] #3671446 10/18/12 03:41 PM
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caldwelldeerhunter Offline OP
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So how long and what temp do you put it at in an electric smoker?


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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: caldwelldeerhunter] #3671685 10/18/12 05:11 PM
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Hey caldwelldeerhunter. So I just did a batch of jerky myself about a week ago. It turned out great. And still I think I would do some different things next time. So here is the set up. I have a masterbilt smokehouse, with a timer and temperature control. I figure I can do about 5 lbs of jerky slices at a time, this equates to about 1 gallon ziplock of meet sliced up. - So

1) I cut very thin pieces from my bottom round roast, you want to do this pretty cold almost partially frozen to make nice looking actual "jerky cuts" the kind you'd buy at the store

2) I put all these slices into a disposable metal man and marinated in worstestershire sauce, soy sauce, cayenne pepper, hot sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Do your own medley, you know if you like it hot or not... I do so I do lots of hot

3) Marinate in fridge a solid 24 hours... I'd do more if I had time

4) Take out, dry off the meat, either by dabbing with a paper towel or letting it sit.

5) Take your racks out of the smoker and spray them with some non-stick spray (THIS IS IMPORTANT)

6) Start pre-heating your smoker, I did 170 degrees, also I put a cup of hickory chips in to pre season it...I let it warm and burn those puppies for an hour.

7) Lay out your slabs on the trays and try to get some separation between them, and put them in your smoker after its all heated up.

8) I'd smoke for about 6 hours at the 170 temp. Adding 3 to 4 cups of smoke... A cup of smoke seems to burn off in about an hour so in hour intervals ad 3 to 4 cups of smoke... any more than this in my opinion, the smoke has saturated the meat so you're just wasting chips. (also halfway through the process maybe switch your top racks with your bottom to get an equal smoking.

9) Check on your meat if you want, if it still seems pretty moist.. let it just kinda cook in there with no smoke to dry out...Don't go too dry though...this will have to left up to your own discretion.

10) What I did was add red pepper flakes to my top two racks and I added fresh ground pepper to my bottom two racks and immediately vaccum sealed travel bags with the different heats so they could keep absorbing the flavor.

11) Eat and enjoy. The jerky was DELICIOUS.

If I had to change one thing for next time, I think I may have added some brown sugar to my marinating process, if you do this you will have a nice sweet and hot mixture that will produce a beautiful glaze on your jerky, almost teryiaki style. (if you were to do this, let it glaze over in the marinating process, but don't forget to give your jerky a final rinse with water and a drying before adding it to the rack.

Good luck.

Last edited by Washington Ag; 10/18/12 05:12 PM.
Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: Washington Ag] #3671797 10/18/12 05:48 PM
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Use my electric smoker all the time for jerky and it works great. Prepare your meat as normal (slice it all the same thickness and keep it close to the same length) then I use skewers and let it hang. Mine is tall enough to hang 2 sets so I fill it up front to back top and bottom. All year long anytime any of the neighbor kids see me out by my smoker they always come up and want to know if I am cooking jerky and can they try some!!

Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: TxTechsan] #3673729 10/19/12 06:03 AM
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Thanks for all the responses


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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: caldwelldeerhunter] #3684908 10/23/12 05:09 PM
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ok had it at 150 degrees for 8 hours and the meat is still wet... how do you dry it out without cooking it? I did not add water to the pan so if I did that then it would really be wet then. It is like a sauna when you open the door without water in the pan, It made seasoning drip off but does have a smoky taste. I would like to get jerky out of this but don’t know what I am doing wrong? I had to put it into the dehydrator to finish these pieces off. what temps and how long do you do this for?


If I put my wife in a high fence will her rack get bigger?
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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: caldwelldeerhunter] #3685476 10/23/12 08:29 PM
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Yup, that's my experience too. I think that there's so much less air circulation in my smoker (even with the smoke vent open full) that it just is not designed to dry very well. And as you said, turn it up and you just cook it. All this makes the smoker great for other meats, which you want juicy and not dried out. I might have been able to tweak it a bit to figure out how to make it work, but everybody liked my jerky from the dehydrator so much, it just wasn't worth the time, effort, and sub-par batches to learn to switch over to my smoker. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: Scoop] #3685519 10/23/12 08:47 PM
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Originally Posted By: Scoop
Yup, that's my experience too. I think that there's so much less air circulation in my smoker (even with the smoke vent open full) that it just is not designed to dry very well. And as you said, turn it up and you just cook it. All this makes the smoker great for other meats, which you want juicy and not dried out. I might have been able to tweak it a bit to figure out how to make it work, but everybody liked my jerky from the dehydrator so much, it just wasn't worth the time, effort, and sub-par batches to learn to switch over to my smoker. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.


If I cant find an answer on here then I am planning on smoking it for only 2 hours then putting it into the dehydrator just to get that smoke taste. It will be a pain in the arse but the liquid smoke I use is just not the same thing...


If I put my wife in a high fence will her rack get bigger?
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Re: Electric smoker/ Deer jerky question [Re: caldwelldeerhunter] #3686065 10/24/12 12:08 AM
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Originally Posted By: caldwelldeerhunter

If I cant find an answer on here then I am planning on smoking it for only 2 hours then putting it into the dehydrator just to get that smoke taste. It will be a pain in the arse but the liquid smoke I use is just not the same thing...


The recipe I use the most is more of a hot-spiced using a dusting of Tony's after 24 hours in a Tabasco spiked marinade. I only use a bit of smoke in that, so the liquid works fine for that. I see where you are coming from though, if smoke plays a bigger role in the flavor.

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