Super tender pastrami beef jerky from the bullet smoker

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 1 ½ kg beef (eye round, also known as semer roll, tail piece)
• 2 tbsp ground pepper
• 2 tbsp coriander
• 1 tsp curing salt
• ½ tbsp garlic, squeezed
• 120 ml soy sauce
• 120 ml Worcestershire sauce
• 60 ml bourbon whiskey
• 60 ml sugar syrup, amount according to taste
• 1 handful of smoking chips (hickory smoking chips)

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Rest period approx. 2 days; Cooking/baking time approx. 10 hours; Total time approx. 2 days 11 hours

better than any jerky from the dehydrator or oven

For the meat, don’t use beef roulade or flank steak, as is often recommended, as it’s simply too fatty and sinewy. Instead, use the leanest butcher’s cut available. If it doesn’t hurt, use fillet; everyone else uses the tail piece from the underside. Cut the meat into strips about 1 cm thick. Mix soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, whiskey, sugar syrup, crushed garlic, curing salt, and 1 tablespoon each of pepper and coriander in a bag. Add the sliced ​​meat and mix well. Squeeze out any remaining air from the bag and then leave it in the refrigerator to marinate for 2-3 days. Twice a day, open the bag and stir thoroughly to ensure the meat is well marinated on all sides. Then remove the meat from the bag and drain it, for example, in a colander. In the meantime, soak a small handful of hickory smoking chips in water. The rule here is: less is more! Too many smoking chips will give the bullet smoker a “salami” taste. Load the bullet smoker with charcoal briquettes using the minion ring method and light it. Make sure you use high-quality charcoal, as discount store products often use a binding agent that creates smoke when the coals glow. Place the drained jerky on a plate and sprinkle evenly with the remaining seasonings. If you don’t want to put the jerky on the grill, you can insert small wire hooks or something similar into the end of the meat at this point so that you can hang it on the grill later. This allows excess moisture, fat, and marinade to drain off more easily. Drain the hickory chips, spread them on the first part of the charcoal ring, fill the water bowl with warm water, and place the meat on the grates. The smoker should be set so that it stabilizes at 75±5 °C. You should check regularly to see if the temperature is still right, the charcoal ring is glowing evenly, and there is still water in the bowl. Since the meat is cut quite thickly in this case, it can easily take 10 hours until the meat reaches the desired consistency. This is the key to super-tender meat. It should be quite firm and no longer wobbly. If in doubt, you can take a piece and tear it open. If it tears stringy, it’s good. This recipe deliberately uses thickly cut meat, curing salt, and a long marinating time. The curing salt gives the meat an attractive color, protects it from bacteria, and imparts the typical cured flavor that is typical of store-bought jerky. Combined with the thickness and the long marinating, the jerky is a true flavor bomb and is super tender to the bite. It surpasses any store-bought “sweet” jerky in terms of flavor and is also significantly cheaper! If you like beef jerky from the big brands, you’ll love this recipe! While it’s a bit time-consuming, it’s truly beef jerky and not comparable to the kind you’d find in an oven or dehydrator.