Skip to main content

I have tasted some really good hamburger jerky so I thought I’d give it a try.
My first attempt tasted good, but the texture sucked.
Several people told me that I just didn’t smoke it long enough.
The Hi Mountain Jerky instructions caution against going longer than 2 hours.
Using that as an argument against smoking any longer I was still told I needed to go between 2 and a half to 3 hours.
So, for my 2nd attempt I just smoked 10 lbs of jerky and beef sticks for 3 hours at 200⁰ and it was still rubbery.
Then I stuck it in the oven for an hour at 215⁰.
This dried it out a bit more the beef sticks were only ok, but I think the jerky is still rubbery.

I have eaten hamburger jerky you could barely tell apart from whole muscle jerky. What’s the trick?
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Your temp is too high. You're actually cooking the meat. It needs to be dehydrated at a low temperature.

I set my 009 at 185* for 1 hour to bring the meat to the safe temp of 160* (poultry 165*), then reduce temp to 140* for the remainder of the smoke. I open the door several times to reduce the moisture, which also adds to the total smoke time. Total time will be about 4-5 hours depending on the thickness of the meat.

Very lean meat will produce better jerky. 85% or better hamburger works good.
I know when I used my dehydrators (on whole muscle) it would take 5-6 hours. Hi-Mountain warns against going over 2 hours, but I wondered about that. I did use 85%, but I think I’ll bump up on the next try. I left the door of my 066 closed the first hour and cracked it roughly every 20 minutes until I took it out. The front 2-3” and the side 1” seems to dry out the jerky much faster. I’ll try your method on the next batch Thanks for the input.

Add Reply

Post
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×