Anyone have any good smoking recipes for a Dehydrator? My mother in law is getting me a dehydrator that I am going to use to make apple chips and such for hunting and camping snacks. I noticed that some people use them for making jerky and I was hoping someone may have some ideas for making jerky in the dehydrator.

Heres a recipe I used when making jerky.

Hot Pickle Cure Jerky**

This recipe uses a pre-cook phase.
Yield: Five pounds of fresh meat should weigh approximately 2 pounds after drying or smoking.

1. Slice 5 pounds of meat (1/4-inch strips) with the grain, not crosswise. Use fresh lean meat free of fat and connective tissue. Spread out meat and sprinkle on 3 Tbsp. salt, 2 tsp. ground black pepper, and 2 Tbsp. sugar. Put the meat in a pan or dish and let stand for 24 hours in the refrigerator.
2. Pound the meat on both sides to work in the spice. Optional: Dip strips of meat in a liquid smoke solution (five parts water to one part liquid smoke) for one to two seconds for added flavor.
3. Make a brine by dissolving 3/4 cup salt, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 Tbsp. ground black pepper in a gallon of water. Stir to dissolve the salt and sugar.
4. Bring the brine to a low to medium boil. Immerse the seasoned meat strips (a few at a time) into the boiling brine until they turn gray (approximately one to two minutes). Remove meat from brine, using clean tongs or other utensils that have not contacted raw meat.
5. Spread out meat on a clean dehydrator rack or on a clean rack in the top half of a kitchen oven. If you use a kitchen oven, open the oven door to the first or second stop. Heat at 120 to 150 F (lowest oven temperature) for nine to 24 hours or until the desired dryness is reached. Remove jerky from oven before it gets too hard or brittle. Properly dried jerky should crack when bent in half but should not break into two pieces.
6. Store jerky in clean jars or plastic bags, or wrap it in freezer paper and freeze. If kept dry, properly prepared jerky will last almost indefinitely at any temperature.

Alternatively you can go to step 3 (the brine) and instead of slightly cooking the meat (which is faster) you soak the meat over-night and continue from there. The brine will dehydrate the meat and firm it up. After a liquid brine or even a dry rub, you need to rinse the meat and then put in refrig. uncovered, for about 12hrs. This will further dehydrate the meat and it will form a glossy skin on it. Important to do this with salmon, or you'll get mushy meat. You might not need to do this with a dehydrator, I use a smoker to make jerky. I have two, one is for cold smoking and one for hot smoking. I use the cold smoker for jerky. It only gets to about 200 degrees, maybe 250 and I'll smoke it for about 2 to 5 hr's, depends on the meat. If your dehydrator can get up to a higher temp, it won't take as long to dry out the meat, but don't go too high or you'll have some pretty hard stuff.

Good recipe Omini, I'll have to try that method.


Smokin
a
fattie
Suz