Jerky on the Kamado

[tenpenny_05]

This fall I decided to try and make my own jerky, I tried once several years ago and it was terrible, but with more experience with meat under my belt I figured to give it a go.
I asked my step-dad if I could borrow his dehydrator and he gave me a whole bunch of hi mountain cure and seasoning that I had gifted him the previous year. He claims it made his jerky too salty, but I'm sure he didn't follow the direction.
I followed the directions to a T. Used eye of round cut into thick strips and let it cure in the fridge for 24 hours. I didn't have enough room on the dehydrator for the whole batch, so I decided to try the rest on the kamado joe.
This was my original plan but I wasn't sure about 1)having enough real estate for all the jerky, or 2)being able to keep the temps below 200 so I didn't cook the meat.
The cold weather here made it easy for the KJ to hold about 185 at the dome like a champ. The jerky looked way better than I could have imagined. However, it picked up a lot of flavor from the grill. The jerky that came off of it had a weird ham/ribs/chicken flavor. Not bad, just different.
Needless to say I think I'll stick to the dehydrator next time.

 

[RJ_Make]

Why do you think that happened?

 

[tenpenny_05]

I cook a lot of fatty chicken on my KJ. Mostly medium heat, short cooks. I've likely got a lot of grease/chicken fat built up and could probably benefit from a high temp burnout.