When I was a kid watching westerns on TV I learned about beef jerky. I thought the idea of dried meat sounded cool and I wanted to try some. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I got my chance.

The gas station next to my bus stop, which would take me to my university, sold beef jerky.

It was not the beef jerky that most Americans are familiar with. It wasn’t moist, or thick, or anything really resembling beef jerky that you typically find here in the states.

It was dried meat. Thin sheets of it. Dry as a bone, and gawd it was so tasty.
When I moved to the states, it was only a matter of time before I would encounter jerky again. I think the first time that I really re-discovered it was when my wife gave me beef jerky she had procured from a World Market in Eugene, OR. After that, we paid several visits to the store and we always came away with an armload of jerky.

It was good.

No, it was really good.

It wasn’t what I had experienced back in Australia.

That doesn’t mean that it was in any way lesser. It just wasn’t the same stuff with which I was introduced to beef jerky, and it seemed like a far cry from the stuff that cowboys would haul around in their saddlebags as the roamed the countryside.

When we got our hands on a smoker, I immediately wanted to try creating my own beef jerky. I wasn’t really focused on what sort of beef jerky I wanted to create. I just wanted to make some.

Over several years of making my own beef jerky, I’ve come up with my own end result. And it leans heavily toward the jerky that I first tried as a young adult in Australia - lean, very dry and very tasty.

Here is my steps on how to make jerky:

1. Obtain a big ass slab of meat. Brisket is my choice because its decent, its cheap and its going to go through hell and back before I am ready to eat it.

2. Slice that meat into thin strips, discarding all traces of fat. This is lean, dry beef jerky. Any fat will make your beef jerky more moist and well - look at your stomach - do you really need any extra fat?

3. Marinade your slices of meat in various sauces and such for at least 24 hours. (Sauces? That’s very vague, isn’t it Scott? Yup. And that’s the way I like it. When I make beef jerky, I raid the pantry and the fridge - anything that is sauce or granule-like (for example, don’t add dried herbs that are leafy and will just burn up in the smoking process and cause a bitter taste). If you were to ask me (as many have), what I put into my marinade, I reply that I put in everything but the kitchen sink - but only because the kitchen sink wouldn’t fit.

I let my marinade get into the meat for at least 24 hours. At that point we are ready to start making jerky!

Lay the strips out on your smoking rack, smoke the beef jerky with mesquite wood chips (or any other type of wood that you desire), for at least 12 hours. The smoking time will depend on how thick you’ve cut your strips. When the smoking is done, you should have yourself a bunch of ready to eat dried meat.

This particular batch that I made turned out to be very spicy and just a tad hot. I received rave reviews from everyone that tried it, and even a few that dived for the nearest source of water - which made me grin like a Chesire cat. So I ended up calling this batch Scott English’s El Diablo Beef Jerky. I was quite proud of it!

One thing that you should remember to do is wearing gloves when you are handling the beef jerky, especially after it has been marinating in hot sauces and peppers for at 24 hours. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry, and so will every part on your body that you scratch. Of course, after you’ve been handling the beef jerky for a while, your gloved hand will make you look like some sort of mad scientist carving up the latest experiment - but its much better than scratching anywhere around your eyes or other tender body parts.

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