Like Dan from Madison, I’ve been trying to practice a few jerky recipes to prep for the jerky competition between Astro, DFM (Dan from Madison), Skaterat, and JohnnyJ.  The first iteration went, well, ok I guess.  My dad ended up talking me into ditching all the ingredients to marinade it and just using salt, pepper and “steak dust.”  After throwing it all in a bowl for a few hours, we used real mesquite to smoke it in the smoker.  I wish I would’ve used at least some sort of marinade.  Granted it’s only beef (which I have to experiment on before I use my prized venison), the jerky turned out pretty good, but not what I need to win the “jerk off” competition.  It keeps the taste of the beef; but honestly, I think we kept it on smoke for too long because I almost feel like I’m eating mesquite-bark instead of dried beef.  It still tastes good enough to where it was my lunch and dinner for today.  We’ll call that the first iteration though.  Tomorrow, I’m gonna craft some marinade recipe to work with and maybe smoke it for 1/2 the time.