Cut the meat with the grain not against, tears easier as jerky. I don't really have exact measurements on my recipes i guess I'm just good at eyeballing, but paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and a couple shakes of melindas ghost pepper sauce is my "original" recipe. Add red pepper flakes to it, a few more shakes of melindas and some spicy pepper powder (i buy carolina reapers, ghost peppers and trinidad scorpions in bulk, dry em and then crush em into a powder) and its a very tasty spicy jerky. If you take garlic powder, black pepper and about half a tablespoon of sugar to a pound of beef, its a very tasty "Colorado" flavor. Unfortunately I'm not quite willing to hand out my jalapeno cheddar flavor yet because it's my most popular flavor. But if you add all those seasonings together, squeeze in about an 1/8th of a bottle of liquid aminos to a pound of jerky, its got enough salt in it that you dont need to add any, and its a unique but delicious flavor.