I decided to do beef jerky for my second cook on the OJB this weekend. Thought I would share a few things I tried out. Got a nice eye of round from Cash and Carry and ended up with 6.5 lbs after trimming and cutting. I went with the grain and thick cuts for nice chewy jerky. I decided to do half using Meathead's home made beef jerky recipe from the free side and half rig hand jerky from jerkyholic.com,
I let it marinate for a day and half mainly because I didn't have time the first night. After doing some research I found that I needed to cook it at 200 for an hour or so and then bring it down to 170ish. From my previous cooks I found that to bring the OJB down to 225-250 range I had to close the dampers down to a quarter or to the 1 on the gauges. So bringing it down to 170 seemed impossible without snuffing out the coals. I tried doing some research online but the only jerky cook on the OBJ I could find was someone who poured on the ligther fluid to start the coals and finished their jerky in an hour.. So not the best role model.
I researched PBC and green egg methods but only found debates on people using a half dozen or so coals and then adding a few more here and there or transferring to the oven/dehydrator. Using just a few coals at a time gave me the idea to use the snake method. I had some ceramic tiles laying around and after a few tries and one dry run I figured it out. The tiles I used were 4x8 but 4x10's would probably work best.
I used my chimney to light 8 coals and placed them at the start of the snake,
I let it run with vents wide open for about 20 minutes until I got it up to 200 degrees. I then added my jerky. I tried researching hanging methods for jerky on the OJB but of coarse I found nothing. So borrowing from the PBC I bought two 1/4" x 2' threaded rods at Lowes and a bunch of 15" metal skewers,
The threads really helped keep the skewers in place and they didn't move at all throughout the cook. The rods were thin enough that the lid gasket sealed tight around them.
I then deployed my other experiment, my smoke induction device...
Thought here was I want to be able to control the amount of smoke introduced into the cooker. I can control when the smoke is added and for how long. The tube should produce a relatively constant level of smoke. So if I control how long I leave the tube on for then I should be able to control the total amount of smoke. Also the smoke is being drawn down under the coals. The smoke rising up from the stack was noticeably thinner and maybe bluer? Still hard for me to tell. For this cook I did 45 minutes of smoke using cherry pellets. I then removed the A-maze-n tube and dumped the rest of the pellets into my metal trash can.
I brought the temp up to 200 for an hour and then brought it down to 170-190 from there. I was having to adjust the dampers throughout the cook to try to keep the temps down. I think it was based on how much of the snake was burning at any one time. Maybe I need to be more careful and uniform with my spacing on the coals. However, I was able to keep it under 190 for the entire cook without snuffing out the coals. In the end I smoked the jerky for 5 and a half hours and let them cool overnight before bagging them up.
My first impression was that they needed more smoke but after resting in a ziplock bag for a day the smoke has actually deepened and I think it's just right now. So far I think I like the Rig Hand jerky the best but I will have to out all the other recipes in the near future. Also checked and my snake burned completely down and worked like a charm,
I let it marinate for a day and half mainly because I didn't have time the first night. After doing some research I found that I needed to cook it at 200 for an hour or so and then bring it down to 170ish. From my previous cooks I found that to bring the OJB down to 225-250 range I had to close the dampers down to a quarter or to the 1 on the gauges. So bringing it down to 170 seemed impossible without snuffing out the coals. I tried doing some research online but the only jerky cook on the OBJ I could find was someone who poured on the ligther fluid to start the coals and finished their jerky in an hour.. So not the best role model.
I researched PBC and green egg methods but only found debates on people using a half dozen or so coals and then adding a few more here and there or transferring to the oven/dehydrator. Using just a few coals at a time gave me the idea to use the snake method. I had some ceramic tiles laying around and after a few tries and one dry run I figured it out. The tiles I used were 4x8 but 4x10's would probably work best.
I used my chimney to light 8 coals and placed them at the start of the snake,
I let it run with vents wide open for about 20 minutes until I got it up to 200 degrees. I then added my jerky. I tried researching hanging methods for jerky on the OJB but of coarse I found nothing. So borrowing from the PBC I bought two 1/4" x 2' threaded rods at Lowes and a bunch of 15" metal skewers,
The threads really helped keep the skewers in place and they didn't move at all throughout the cook. The rods were thin enough that the lid gasket sealed tight around them.
I then deployed my other experiment, my smoke induction device...
Thought here was I want to be able to control the amount of smoke introduced into the cooker. I can control when the smoke is added and for how long. The tube should produce a relatively constant level of smoke. So if I control how long I leave the tube on for then I should be able to control the total amount of smoke. Also the smoke is being drawn down under the coals. The smoke rising up from the stack was noticeably thinner and maybe bluer? Still hard for me to tell. For this cook I did 45 minutes of smoke using cherry pellets. I then removed the A-maze-n tube and dumped the rest of the pellets into my metal trash can.
I brought the temp up to 200 for an hour and then brought it down to 170-190 from there. I was having to adjust the dampers throughout the cook to try to keep the temps down. I think it was based on how much of the snake was burning at any one time. Maybe I need to be more careful and uniform with my spacing on the coals. However, I was able to keep it under 190 for the entire cook without snuffing out the coals. In the end I smoked the jerky for 5 and a half hours and let them cool overnight before bagging them up.
My first impression was that they needed more smoke but after resting in a ziplock bag for a day the smoke has actually deepened and I think it's just right now. So far I think I like the Rig Hand jerky the best but I will have to out all the other recipes in the near future. Also checked and my snake burned completely down and worked like a charm,