How to Smoke Jerky on your Traeger

[Music]hi there so in this video we’re gonnamake some beef jerkyI’m gonna use my trigger smokers I gottwo in the background you can see hereone is a timber line and one is theProSeries I find there’s pros and consto both depending what you’re trying todo the the larger one which is thetimber line it will it’s insulated andit recycles the smoke so I use lesspellets the other one that Pro Series isa little bit smaller but it doesn’trecycle the smoke so I find there’s moreair in there which will be better fordrying out the the jerkyso depending on on what you have doingjerky on either one is doablethey just slightly different approachokay first thing we’re gonna need is arecipe so I like the trigger recipesI’ve never really gone wrong with thoseyou can get them online google them ifyou have a trigger to come with a recipebook I’m going to just tell you what itsays here for their beef jerky they usea half a cup of soy sauce 1/2 a cup beerColaor water 1/4 cup or chester cider sauce2 teaspoons of garlic powder 1 teaspoonof onion powder 1 teaspoon of freshlyground pepper and 2 pounds of trimmedbeef top or bottom round sirloin tip orflank steak I typically will use the eyeof round you want something that’strimmed down no fat very little grizzlethe eye of round is a very easy one todo I’m a very simple to slice is easiestslice against the greens you knowexactly how to do that I’m not gonnagive away my secret recipe it’s verysimilar I don’t use the beer coal orwater though I have used a Guinness beera dark beer is really good if you’redoing something with the beef Isometimes will add a little bit of brownsugar so there’s something you can cantry and also a little bit of paprikawill also give a little bit more smokyflavor so I’ll play around with therecipes I add a couple other things justto give it a little bit more taste okI’m all set to will start trimming thebeef soI have the eye of round that I’m goingto use for this this has been thecryovac package so I’m gonna have totrim it so before we start to wash myhere okay so we’re all set to start sothey just to give that a bit quicklittle rinse and now what we want to dois just wanna make sure that I take anyof this fat off of here you don’t wantto you that in the jerky so that’s gonnamake it go bad after a whileokay once we have all the fat off andwell trimmed or we’ll be ready to slicethis now personally I like to put theroast into the freezer for several hoursnot to freeze it solid but to give it abit of a texture which makes it easierto slice that’s an option you can domake sure you have a sharp kniferegardless of how you slice the beefthat’ll make a big differenceokay I’m gonna go ahead and start makingthe marinade and use this Rubbermaidcontainer something that’s gonna be bigenough to hold the roast beef not forgetit sliced up so I’m gonna follow therecipe I’m gonna use something slightlydifferentI’m gonna use my own recipe but a lot ofthe main ingredients are the same so goahead and make up the marinade and thenwe will slice the beefokay so we have the rest of theingredients in that I’m going to usetoday and I’m going to stir it togetherwith the whisk will take a few minutesto do this I wish that would stir itselfbut that would just be wishful thinkingokay so I’ve let the beef sit in thefreezer for about an hour and I have thesauce is ready to go so now this roastis a little bit larger than I wouldnormally do so I probably could use acouple hours in the freezer to get tothe consistency that we’d want wellthat’s okay we’re gonna make two littleguy so I’d like to throw a lid on themarinade sauce that’ll give us the[Music]protection we need in the fridge becausewhat I’m gonna do is let this sit in thefridge for several hours it says up tothree hours I like to go overnight 24hoursgives you a nice consistent marinade sookay we’re basically just gonna slice itup now I have some of these smallerpieces I’ve already sliced from the thisin you when I was pulling that off theroast so go ahead put those in theredon’t want to waste anything now this isI have round now if you get the roastalready trimmed up in the supermarketthat would be your best bet so this yearbasically I’m gonna cut against thegrain so I’ve rounds very easy to dothat because basically it’s like acylinder so all you’re doing is justslicing up this wayso you want it relatively thin so thethinner you get it the better it’s goingto dry out on the smoker so I’m gonnasay the flat noted that depending on thesize of your roast is a little bitthicker will take longer but the otherthing to keep in mind is how much you’regoing to have so the thinner I slice isgonna give me more slices on the smokerand the problem is I only have so muchrack size to put the meat on so keepthat in mind as wellyou will talk more about the rackingsystem that I use and how I load up thesmoker once we get that so originally Icarry on doing itvinegar slicing it at a nice thin thisjust adding it to the the marinade andthen once we’re all set we’re gonna letthat sit overnight and we’ll carry onwith carvingso once you get past the start of theroast you get closer to the centeryou’ll find that the slices get quite abit larger appeasing eye around so wesee we have a fairly large slice I’mgonna leave it this way I like tomarinate it this way and I like to putthem on the rack and smoke them this waywhen I’m all done I’ll slice them upinto thinner strips they killed ormissing Turkey the reason why I do thisit gives you less things to handle so Idon’t have to so I have to dry all theseafter we marinate them and then arrangethem on the smoker and then the rack soit’s less handling I find it goes alittle faster for just the way I arrangethings so I will leave it that way don’tworry we’ll slice them cut them downinto the exercises before we eat themI’ll show you that as we go alongwhat do you get to the end or a piecethat’s too thick just go ahead butterflyit out pound it out so it’s a littlethinner and there you go it’s ready togive it a bit of a stir make sureeverything is covered and we’re gonnaput that in the fridge for 24 hours andthen I’ll maybe stir it a couple times Iturn that 24 hoursall right so we’ve licked the jerkymarinade over over 24 hours what do youdo now is gonna set up the trigger so Ihave two triggers I have the timber lineso the timber line 1300 they have a lotmore grilling spacethis is insulated so it’s a little cooltoday fact I think it’s only about oneor two degrees so I am going to to usethis because it is insulated and it hasthe keep the heat actually thing withthis solar to recycle the smoke so withthree cycling the smoke on this it’salso going to keep it it’s not going todry out as much unfortunately it’s not agood thing for Jerky’s you wanted to tryso I’m gonna have to either two choiceshere there is a vent I could open up toload a little bit more area or you canprop the lid just slightly this isinsulated around the bottom probablywhat I will do is I’ll just come out andcheck every couple of hours on the halfhoursopen up the lid letting voice your outas well as check on the on the jerky thetrigger proline would work well becauseit doesn’t recycle the smoke so it’lldry out the jerky a lot faster so thatwould be a good option but it’s not bigenough for what I want to use todaylet’s go ahead and load up the pelletsokay so we’re ready to set the smokepellets I’m gonna use the Texas beefit’s a trigger blend oak mesquite andpecan so I find that a perfect one toany sort of beef product I like that ifnot Hickory is also a good option forthe beat so I’m gonna go ahead and loadup some pellets and then we’re gonna getready to just set the jerky up on theracks okayso you have a couple of options here youcan set up your jerky straight to yourracks on your smoker nothing wrong withthat I prefer to do this method that I’mgoing to use it just makes cleanup alittle bit easier simpler and then makesthe turnsfaster – so what I’m gonna do is I havesome cooking racks where you give awhole barbeque rack these are a littlebit smaller than my grill so I’m goingto use these so what I’m gonna do is I’mgonna prep all the turkey in here dang Iput it on top of this cookie sheet I’llshow you I’m gonna do that so I can takeit all to and from and this way also ifyou want achieve a dehydrator gonna putin the oven for a few hours you can dothat as well so it makes it very easy totransfer stuff grown let’s give that aminute so one things I also like to do Ilike to make sure you use some cookingspray I’ll just find the cleanup is awhole lot easier for me keeping justabout keeping things a little bitsimpler as much as we canclean up then these things can go in thedishwasher my racks on the Timberlineyour tubing so cleanliness is importantokay so they everything’s free what I’mgonna do is show you here a little quickbecause I have the amount of jerky theydo size the roofs they have I’m gonnalayer these up I’ll just show you herethis is what what’ll happen have theselittle blocks they used leftover projectwith two by twos there you go you’regonna tear it up now you have all thejerky he’s gonna be able to easily betransported back and forth and thecleanups gonna be real easy cuz all thiscan fit into the dishwasher now the onlything that would be just caution you ismake sure whatever you use it’s gonnaget smoky and it’s gonna retain thatsmoke so this cookie sheet I only use onthe smoker okay so what were you now isI my first trade is set I’ve taken thejerky out of the fridge you see howthat’s been well marinated now way to doand this is important I forgotten thisstuff a couple of times is we need todry out the jerky so just take the papertowel and dab it so you take all theextra juices off there marinate off ofthat so what I like to do mmmtwo sheets I use the lid here we wash myhands ahead of timehands are washed probably do is takeeach piece I’ll lay it out on the papertowel name remember how we didn’t sliceup the jerky earlier nice large pieceseasy to move around hereso we got these pieces take anotherCapTel and just dab it your I take thissowait idea just take the X next smarinate off of that now what we do iswe lay it out on the grill kind of likea puzzle piece so we’re looking to tryto get as much covered on here as we canyouand there we go we’re all set so throwthe excess marinade sauce out we don’twant to reuse that and we’ll go aheadwe’ll take the the racks out to thesmoker okay here’s the example it’s veryeasy to take all these at once thumbs ontop fingers underneath clamp it downI can easily transport this around makesa little quicker so all you got to doslide it in and now we’re all set makesure you check ahead of time make surethat’s gonna fit so what are the newsabout that start smokingwe say at least a minimum of two hoursthree to four is better and once it’sdone we’re almost done I’m gonna turnthe heat up so I have a 180 right nowwe’re gonna start smoking and then we’llkeep checking on it about every 20minutes that way opening this up alittle so why don’t any moisture that’sbeen collecting in there so let’s seehow that works out all right if you guyssmoke rolling I check little moistureout it’s exactly what we want it’s beenabout an hour now we’re just then took apeek that’s both going on there makesure to dry it a little bitall right so we’ll carry that on keepingit at 180 let me continue to smoke andI’ll let the moisture out every every 20minutes or so open that lid let somefresh air through okay it’s been acouple hours nowcheck it see how that’s comfortable andit looks like we got the the top rack isdrying up plate lowI gotta give that a little bit more timeyou could flip it if you want I don’tbut I can see the bottom box here westill need another hours one that youmind you can just turn up the heat alittle bit don’t have the heat willobviously give usdrying time okay it’s been approximatelythree hours on this hooker I’ve turnedit up the heat a little bit so thatshould be looking nice and dry it is Idon’t like it to dry so I’m gonna takethis off now and then we can enjoy someall right here we go we’ve got all threeracks and I can see that it’s lookingnice and try if you will have adehydrator want to dehydrate them that’sgreat that’s the way I like it I’llpackage these up put them in therefrigerator and then that’s the way Ilike to store it I keep them in there inthe fridge so here we go see you niceand see now we talked about before wehave our larger pieces now a simple wayto do this is just slice them up so Ijust like to take a knife slice it intosome strips and there you go and you’reall setI just throw these into some packagesziploc bags I have a vacuum sealer Ilike to vacuum seal it and then we putthat into the fridge freezer and nowyou’re all set