we usually start with charcoal, and add pieces of wood(hickory, apple,etc. about the size of a fist) and just keep a balance between airflow, fire, and cooking temp around 250, cooking time depends on lbs. of meat, we just usually keep track of internal temp with a good thermometer. we've done anything from fish to chicken, deer loin, pork loin, shoulder, on and on. it can take so friggin' long to cook a whole pork loin we only do it on like july 4 or the occasional competition.

i would think that with jerky you could just 'eyeball' it.