I found quite a few packages of venison cut for jerky in my freezer a week or so ago.

My son (Pistolwhip), has been asking me to make jerky since I shot a deer last dec and i kept putting it off till I forgot about it.

His 29th birthday was a few days ago and i thought i would surprise him and make as much as i had room for in my smoker.

I found about 7 or 8 packages tucked away so i got the smoker out. Since I haven't used it in 10 or 12 years, I plugged it in, verified it worked , cleaned it up a bit and started looking for jerky making stuff.

I have been making ground venison jerky with a "jerky shooter" for about the past 10 years or so.

OK, so I defrost the jerky meat till there are still just a bit of ice crystals in the large pieces of meat, slice it in roughly 1/4" thick pieces and let the rest thaw to about room temp.

I look for the bottle of jerky seasoning I KNOW is on the shelf and cannot find it. CRAP, what to do now?

I take out the seasoning kit i have for the ground meat jerky maker and see what I have to work with.

Since I have about 10 lbs of meat I double the 5 lb recipe. (I was always pretty good at math).

I have 2 types of seasoning. Regular for my candy ass not too spicy taste and cajun pepper seasoning. I opt for cajun, since Pistolwhip likes it on my ground meat version.

I decide to use 3 parts cajun pepper seasoning to one part Uncle Abes regular jerky seasoning, add a dash of instacure (salt), give the whole mess a very large dose of Italian dressing and top it off with a few tablespoons of liquid smoke.

I marinade the meat with this mix and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next morn, I fill the water pan, plug in the smoker and put 2 pieces of green apple branches about 1 to 1 1/4' thick under the pan and hang the marinaded jerky strips by spearing a wooden toothpick through the meat and hanging it above the water bowl. As the element heats up. it starts the apple branches to start to smoke and I'm only 4 or 5 hours away from jerky heaven.

I checked it about an hour or so later and it was too hot. The outer pieces were cooking and not just drying. I opened the top and put a spacer between the top and the main body to allow the heat to escape, lowering the temp inside the smoker. I repositioned some of the meat,filled the water bowl again and watched diligently for signs of overheating or water level dropping.

Done. I taste tested a piece. Very good, I humbly thought. It bent completely in half without breaking. I pulled the smaller pieces out and repeatedly taste tested them. I gave the larger thicker pieces about another hour or so and then removed them, retaste tested them and let the puppies (who had been walking underfoot since the process started) taste it as well. They seemed to concur that it seemed just right.

Acid test.

Since Pistolwhip's birthday was on a weekday and i have been working 8PM to 6AM this week(why I haven't been posting lately), i took a couple bags of it to the Steeler game(the result of which would cause many to lose lunch).

I gave him a bag that contained about half of all the jerky for his birthday. Should have seen his eyes light up. I gave a smaller bag to my brotherinlaw, who has given me some deer sausage in years gone by.

The BIL all but inhaled it, one piece after another and complimented me that it was the best he ever had (it didn't work as i didn't give him any more ).
I mentioned that perhaps his wife might like to try it. He laughed. Didn't stop him. Jerky gone by 3rd quarter.

There are quite a few recipes for jerky in Uncle Abes Jerky Shooter cookbook but I was wondering who on this list has a recipe they would like to share.

Think I'll go get another piece.

27jerkyboyhand