The food network had jerky made by Alton Brown last night.
He was making it from raw but almost frozen meat, one of his strongest points was that if you use a dehydrator, you don't get as good a result as you would do if you use a fan and filters.
He was almost freezng the raw meat in order to make it cut cleaner.
He then marinaded the sliced beef in a honey, onion powder, Worcestershire sauce, Soy sauce, there were other ingredients too I just went blank trying to remember them.
He marinated for at least 3 hours and normally up to 8 hours.
They were then patted dry between paper towels, and he used common
cellulose air filters, (99 cents from Wal-Mart, note cellulose filters NOT fiberglass filters), for your heater or air conditioner. He used three of them to put the meat on and then covered them with a fourth filter.
He attached the 4 air filters to the front of a Box fan with bungee cords and set the fan turning, pointing it out a window if you don't like the smell too much, (as if a bbqer wouldn't like the smell of air drying meat), I think he said 6 - 8 hours drying.
Then store in a glass container with rooom for air circulation.
Duh! Just thinking about it made me Google Alton Brown Jerky and here is the top recipe
Jerky.