Kurt's Homemade Beef Jerky
This recipe is for the absolute best, most satisfying beef jerky snack.
Equipment
- 1 smoker
- 1 meat slicer optional
Ingredients
- 4 lbs Beef Tri Tip Roast You can buy more of less beef!
- 1 cup cherry wood chips Cherry is our preferred but other wood works too.
- salt
- course pepper
Instructions
- Place your cherry wood in your smoker.Add a small bowl of water underneath. Preheat the smoker until the temperature reaches 250 degrees.
- Slice tri tip roast into strips about 1/8-1/4" thick with a meat slicer or knife.
- Place a generous amount of salt and pepper in the bottom of a jelly roll pan and place the beef strips in a single layer on top of the salt and pepper. Shake more salt and pepper to taste to the top of the beef strips. You will need 2-3 pans to hold all of the meat.
- Transfer the beef to the smoker in single layers directly onto the grates.
- Close the smoker and allow the meat to smoke for an hour checking on it occasionally to make sure it isn't getting too done. Make sure the temp does not go above 250 degrees. Slower, lower heat is perfect as long as you are producing smoke.
- Check on the jerky. Remove any pieces that look done. It could be that all of your meat is ready. Think of it as a steak bite not a tough piece of jerky.
- Close the smoker and allow to cook any pieces that remain. Check on the meat frequently to prevent it from getting dry and crispy.
- Enjoy your jerky snack!