I recently built an automatic temperature controller for Wapiti, One of my goals with the ATC project was to be able to smoke at lower temperatures for cold smoking and for making jerky. I had the opportunity to do my first cook with the ATC unit yesterday.
Filled the firebox with chunks of cherry wood:
Elk meat ground up with a small amount of beef fat, marinated, and formed into strips using a jerky gun:
Jerky loaded into Wapiti. I used both the upper and lower racks:
I set the ATC for a target temp of 160. I used quite a few chunks of cherry wood to get lots of smoke:
My sous chef during the 4.5 hour cook:
Gratuitous shot of Wapiti doing its thing. The ATC did an amazing job of keeping the temp right at 160 though out the whole cook:
Rotating racks right near the end of the cook:
The payoff:
The jerky trial run was a success. I monitored temperatures at both the upper and lower grates. Initially, the top grate ran about 10 degrees warmer then the bottom grate, but toward the end of the cook the opposite was true.
I am going to purchase a couple more 18.5 grates and rig up a stacking method (likely using bolts as others have done). I can easily fit a total of five to six racks into Wapiti to greatly increase the capacity of each smoking session. The jerky turned out even better than I had hope and I think this stuff will go quickly!
You can read about the ATC project here:
http://weberkettleclub.com/forums/weber-kettles-accessories/automatic-temp-controller/Winz
Topic: Elk Jerky (Read 1600 times)
