Aaron and I have had an ongoing love affair with beef jerky. It is quite expensive to buy from the store and we had been talking for weeks and weeks about making it ourselves. Then miraculously early this summer we acquired my moms old dehydrator (which she acquired from her mother, its quite old). We dehydrated all sorts of fruits and fruit spreads and decided to just go for it with the beef jerky.
We went to a local butcher and got 3 lbs of eye of round and had the butcher slice it REALLY thin. The butcher should know how thin when you tell them its for beef jerky. When we were at the local butcher we also bought a starter "Jerky Making Kit" that contained a few varieties of seasoning and Cure. For our first batch we decided the starter was the way to go. This beef wasn't cheap and we weren't trying to waste it all trying to make our own Cure or ruining the seasoning etc.
So the first thing we did when we got home was separate the meat into two sections to make two different flavors. We made a cracked pepper and garlic batch and a mesquite bbq batch. We mixed the beef in the cure and seasoning mixture along with a little bit of water and let it marinade over night in the refridgerator. Then, quite simply in the morning we loaded it onto the trays and rotated the trays every hour or so and we'd also flip the beef on the top tray after each rotation. It will take about 4-6 hours depending on the dehydrator and the thickness of the beef. Also it will depend on how tough or chewy you like it.
We ended up with some fantastic jerky. Next time we hope to weight it before and after so we know what we're yielding as far as price per pound of jerky and also I wasn't huge on the flavors and I like the 'original' flavored jerky and want to try a batch without any seasonings. I know there are methods of doing this without a dehydrator so if you don't have one and try making your own beef jerky let me know how it works.
We went to a local butcher and got 3 lbs of eye of round and had the butcher slice it REALLY thin. The butcher should know how thin when you tell them its for beef jerky. When we were at the local butcher we also bought a starter "Jerky Making Kit" that contained a few varieties of seasoning and Cure. For our first batch we decided the starter was the way to go. This beef wasn't cheap and we weren't trying to waste it all trying to make our own Cure or ruining the seasoning etc. 
So the first thing we did when we got home was separate the meat into two sections to make two different flavors. We made a cracked pepper and garlic batch and a mesquite bbq batch. We mixed the beef in the cure and seasoning mixture along with a little bit of water and let it marinade over night in the refridgerator. Then, quite simply in the morning we loaded it onto the trays and rotated the trays every hour or so and we'd also flip the beef on the top tray after each rotation. It will take about 4-6 hours depending on the dehydrator and the thickness of the beef. Also it will depend on how tough or chewy you like it. 
We ended up with some fantastic jerky. Next time we hope to weight it before and after so we know what we're yielding as far as price per pound of jerky and also I wasn't huge on the flavors and I like the 'original' flavored jerky and want to try a batch without any seasonings. I know there are methods of doing this without a dehydrator so if you don't have one and try making your own beef jerky let me know how it works.
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