Does anyone have any good Venison Jerkey Recipes?  The store bought ones are too salty for my family.

Thank you for your input

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Jerky, jerky and yes....even more jerky recipes

I was just looking for recepies.....going to give making jerky a shot.


Wish me luck ladies!  (and please share any tips!)

Here is one for beef jerkey. Thanks to my buddy @ work for this one
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Best Ever Beef Jerkey Recipe (Risk free and very repeatable)

Utensils / Equipment:
- Smoker
- charcoal (about 2 1/2 quarts of briquettes)
- Mesquite (or Hickory) (large handful)
- 1' x 1' Aluminum foil
- 1/2 gallon V8 juice can
- Refrigerator
- oven or dehydrator used to finish drying if necessary (120 deg max)
- 1' x 2' pan
- 1 gallon or bigger container that will fit in fridge and can be sealed airtight (tupperware or big jar)
- 1 coffee cup
- whole fresh chicken egg, unbroken, uncracked, clean on outside. This will be used only as hydrometer, and can be eaten independant of this recipe.

Ingredients:
- sugar
- salt
- 1 TBSP soy sauce
- 1/4 cup minced onion or 1 Tablespoon onion powder
- 1 Tblspn garlic powder or 3 clove minced garlic
- black pepper (about 2 teaspoon)
- 1-2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional) (or spritz OC gas)
Note 1 teaspoon produces gentle warmth to flavor and 2 teaspoons begins to get hot - 3 is right out
- Juice + seeds from 1 large lemon
- 4#Beef: best use lean cut such as rump roast.  Fat tends to spoil easily.  The meat should be sliced into strips no thinner than 3/16" and no thicker than 5/16".  When the meat dries, it cracks parallel to the grain of the meat, so it's important to cut the strips with grain running parallel to the longest dimension of the strip, otherwise the meat could fall off the rack in the smoker as it dries and become charcoal.

Process: (this sounds complicated but it's easy to do)
1) Put Soy sauce in coffee cup.  Add garlic, onion.  
Add lemon juice.  Place cup in fridge.  This will allow
flavor to leach out of the onions while rest of solution gets
prepared.
2) Get a quart of water, and gently set the chicken egg in it.  
You'll notice it will sink to the bottom.  Remove the egg
and dissolve 1/2 cup of sugar in it.  Gently put the egg
back into the solution.  It will sink again but slower
because the solution is becoming more dense.  Remove the egg.
Add sugar to the solution a Tablespoon at a time, making sure
all sugar gets dissolved between additions, and repeatedly
set and remove the egg to test density.  Stop adding sugar
when egg can float.  Pour this sugar-water into the 1-2 gallon
container.
3) Prepare a salt solution using the egg exactly like previous step.
Start with 1/4 cup of salt and 1 quart of water, adding salt
till egg can float.  Pour final solution into container.
4) Add contents of coffee cup to container.  Add cayenne to container,
and mix thoroughly.
5) Put strips of meat into container one at a time making sure they
get thoroughly wetted by the solution, and make sure the
meat is arranged such that the solution covers all meat.  
Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of black pepper over top of solution.
Seal container and place in fridge of 12-24 hours, shuffling
meat every 6 hours.  Idea is to keep it cold, minimize air
exposure, and agitate solution periodically.
6) Get fire going and ready for meat (see smoker setup)
7) Remove meat from fridge, and pour off solution leaving meat in
container.  You will notice the solution has thickened as
serums have been leached out of the meat, making it preservable.
Rinse meat by adding 1 quart of water to the container,
slushing the meat around for 15 seconds and pouring off.
8) Immediately arrange the meat on the grill in the smoker by draping
each piece over one rung such that the ends hang down and
dont touch other pieces.  This is so smoke can circulate and
cover entire surface of meat.  Sprinkle black pepper all over
meat (to taste) (about 1 teaspoon is good starting point) and
put lid on smoker.  Place foil pillow on top of can and close
smoker door. Watch pepper dust else sneezing results.
9) Allow smoking to continue until fire burns completely out, checking
every hour to make sure meat strips aren't sticking to each
other.  Temperature under no crcumstances should be allowed
to exceed 150 degrees F at any point in the smoking process. or
flavor will be degraded.
10) Remove meat from smoker and place in pan, distributed so they can dry
completely either in hot sun on a dry day or in oven or dehydrator.
Drying temperature should not exceed 120 degrees and should have
plenty of air flow.  Jerkey can be tasted at this point.
11) Store jerkey in large air-tight container with two cups of raw popcorn
thrown in.  This will help keep jerky dry as well as moisten
popcorn which makes it pop fluffier.

Smoker Preparation: (have fire safety under control)
1) get a 1/2 gallon V8 juice can with both ends cut out, placed on
lowest level in smoker upright.  Fill bottom half of can with
charcoal and wet with charcoal lighter.  Ignite, and immediately
fill top half with dry charcoal such that the burning fluid will
slowly ignite the top charcoal.  This low use of fluid minimizes
carcinogenic content of smoke - if paranoid, use methanol as
fluid.
2) Prepare a foil pillow containing hickory or mesquite that is tightly
pinched to seal air.  It should be about 6" x 6" and should be
shaped so it can sit on top of the V8 can eventually.  Do not
put it in until the meat is on the grill and the lid is on.
3) When charcol lighter fluid has completely burned, fire is ready for
meat.  Place grill on highest level in smoker with mid level
vacant.
4) During smoking operation, check hourly to be sure ashes haven't
blocked air passage entering V8 can.