I haven't made jerky in a long time, but I still had my old K-Tel (Remember them?) 5-tray heated dehydrator tucked away. Our two dogs are very finicky, but last year my wife tried some high-falutin' turkey jerky treats with them and they went beserk for them, But at a price twice what people jerky goes for, well, it was just a little much. SO i dug out my old dehydrator and hand formed a bunch of ground turkey and the dogs loved my version too.

Well, It is a pain in the posterior to form ground turkey strips by hand...

I did some research, asked some questions, and went with this unit for several reasons. The two main reasons are that the tube and extruder nozzles are metal, not plastic, and this is MADE IN USA.

The dogs still had a fair amount of my other turkey strips in the jar, so I made a batch of turkey jerky for myself - strictly for research and practice, of course! Before this, I had always made cut-strip beef jerky, so this little dog-treat stuff was my first foray into a ground-base jerky. Let me tell you, a jerky shooter is THE WAY TO GO! If you have never used one before, think of it as a caulking gun for meat.

This unit was very easy to control, the release button is very easy to manipulate at the end of each strip so that you don't keep dispensing, and it just feels solid in the hand. I have found that using a small paring knife to cleanly separate the meat from the end of the nozzle at the end of each strip is helpful - it makes for a neater strip end, both at the start and end of each strip. Having two tubes to pre-fill and swap speeds up the process, too, although with the size of my dehydrator, I don't fill up the tubes all the way - i would have to make the strips much thicker to fit two full tubes on the number of dehydrator trays I have with my unit.

ANYWAY. . . Mrs. just told me that the dog treats are almost gone, And I finished up my "experimental" batch in about 3 days (3lbs starting weight). The dogs' batch just gets a little iodized salt mixed in for preservation purposes and basic flavor enhancement. I mixed my match up with about a heaping teaspoon of Montreal Steak Seasoning and a couple shakes of paprika (Good Hungarian Smoked Paprika!).

This is definitely a worthwhile purchase - I figure that I need to make 6 more batches of doggie treats to amortize the cost of this shooter kit vs. buying the hoity-toity dog treats (at least that is how I persuaded MRS. to let me get it LOL!!!). Don't waste your time with plastic.

(BTW - I just picked the rest of the choices below for how my jerky came out. The selectors are for jerky purchased from jerky.com, and I did not buy jerky, just the jerky shooter...)

I ran my first 5 pounds of meat through it the second day I had it. The double strip head made it so quick to lay out on sheets. I was done within an hour from blending ground meat too in the smoker. I haven’t attempted cutting any strips with the jerky knife but tested it on my arm hair and it is SHARP. The brushes to clean the heads and barrel made for fast clean up. Only single pet peeve I have is the double strip bread is permanently attached to its coupler and having a beveled end internally and not flush like the others ground meat squeezed into it and was a large hassle to get it all cleaned out. Have not yet tried making snack sticks with casings but I’m sure it will be very smooth operating. I would definitely recommend.

I actually ordered this for my husband for his birthday. He had gotten one from Cabelas last year and it broke during the first use. This one is built so much better, my husband is SO happy with it. Thank you!

very well built.

Love this 💕 Could make multiple batches of jerky with different flavors 😋