Sweet Heat Smoked Beef Jerky

1. Partially Freeze the Beef

Place your London broil, top round, or bottom round in the freezer for about 30 minutes before slicing.

This firms up the beef and makes it much easier to get nice, even slices.

After 30 minutes, remove the beef and slice across the grain.

Aim for slices approximately ⅛ to ¼ inch thick. Try to keep the slices as even as possible so they finish cooking at roughly the same time.

2. Give It the Sweet Cure

Grab a tray or cutting board and lay down a layer of brown sugar.

Place the sliced beef directly onto the brown sugar.

Then cover the top of the beef with more brown sugar.

If you have additional slices, you can crisscross or layer them onto the board, adding brown sugar between the layers and finishing with another layer of brown sugar on top.

Once all the beef is coated, place it in the refrigerator for 6–8 hours.

This gives the beef that first hit of sweetness before it goes into the spicy marinade.

3. Make the Sweet-Heat Marinade

After the 6–8 hour brown sugar cure, it's time to build the marinade.

In a large bowl, combine:

Soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, orange juice, pineapple juice, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, habaneros, jalapeños, teriyaki sauce if using, pineapple chunks if using, and any additional hot peppers you want.

Give everything a good mix.

Remove the beef from the brown sugar and wipe off some of the excess sugar. You don't need to remove every bit of it—that sweetness is part of what makes this jerky so good.

Place the beef into a large freezer bag and pour in the marinade.

Seal the bag, remove as much air as possible, and massage the marinade into the beef.

Place the bag in the refrigerator and marinate overnight, about 8–12 hours.

If you can, turn and massage the bag 3–5 times during the marinade so all the beef gets plenty of that sweet-and-spicy goodness.

4. Get the Beef Ready for the Smoker

The next day, line a tray with paper towels.

Remove the beef from the marinade and lay the slices out on the paper towels.

Pat the beef dry.

If you have pieces of sliced pepper still sticking to the beef, leave them there. Those little pepper pieces will give you an extra hit of heat.

5. Fire Up the Z Grills

Fire up your Z Grills and load it with cherry pellets.

You can use cherry, another fruit wood, or really any pellet you enjoy with beef.

Set the grill somewhere between 160–180°F.

The goal here is low heat and plenty of smoke.

Once the Z Grills reaches temperature, place the beef jerky on the middle shelf, making sure the pieces aren't overlapping.

6. Smoke the Jerky

At around the 2–2½ hour mark, start checking the jerky.

You should see the beef developing a beautiful color, and the cherry smoke should have worked its way into the meat.

Continue smoking at approximately 160–180°F.

Around the 4-hour mark, start checking for doneness.

Remember, the exact cooking time can vary depending on the thickness of your slices, the amount of moisture in the meat, and your smoker's temperature.

7. How to Tell When Your Jerky Is Done

This is the important part.

Take a piece of jerky and bend it.

You do NOT want it to snap in half.

The jerky should bend without breaking, and you should be able to see those nice meat fibers inside.

Give it a little tug with your hands. You want some resistance and a nice chew.

If it bends, shows those fibers, and has a good tug without being wet or mushy, your jerky is done.

8. Cool & Store

Remove the jerky from the Z Grills and place it on a board or tray to cool.

Once cooled, I like to portion it into small sandwich bags and store it in the refrigerator.

I leave the bags unsealed rather than trapping moisture inside.

Now you've got homemade sweet-heat beef jerky that's ready to grab and go whenever you want a snack.