Dan,
Here is my snack stick recipe if you want to try it. For years I have made sliced jerky with my duck and goose meat from hunting. Only recently did I switch to ground meat and making snack sticks which I like much better. I started off with an old butcher recipe that was shared with me that I have modified slightly over time to suit my own liking. I have made it with both ground 8lbs duck/goose meat and 2lbs ground country style pork ribs plus I have replaced the duck/goose with ground turkey meat too. No doubt that it would be great with your venison as well. So far, since I have been making the sticks, I have made six 10lb batches. My goal was to make an affordable recipe, not using a pre mix like Hi Mountain. Also to keep it healthy with low salt, low colestorol and low sugar. To do this I use Braggs Aminos in place of soy sauce, low sodium Worcestershire, salt substitute, brown Splenda, low salt/sugar bbq sauce. The taste does not reflect the use of substituted components at all.
Also when I switched to grinding my own meat for the sticks, I started smoking them instead of using a
dehydrator like I did before. This made a big improvement and I wont go back to the
dehydrator.
Recipe for 10 pounds of meat.
8 lbs ground duck/goose or turkey
2 lbs ground pork (fat trimmed)
2T dry mustard
1/2 cup favorite Hot BBQ sauce (Billy Simm's Boot Kickin Hot)
1/2 cup low sodium worcestershire sauce
1 cup Bragg's Liquid Aminos
2T salt substitute
1T onion powder
3 tsp coarse black pepper
1/2 cup brown Splenda (this replaces brown sugar)
1T garlic powder
1T Tacoville hot sauce (very hot)
1T chile powder
2 tsp #1 cure
1T ground cayenne
1T crushed red pepper flakes
1 T ground ginger
1 T Accent
1/2 T nutmeg
1/2 T marjoram
2T corn starch
1T Fiesta Venison Sausage Seasoning
1 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup powdered buttermilk
1/2 cup Agave Nectar (replaces maple syrup)
1 cup apple juice (no sugar added)
1 cup orange juice (no sugar added)
I use a
jerky gun to form my sticks and smoke them on racks for 3 to 4 hours at 150 degrees, finishing up at 175 using pecan wood. Before smoking I sprinkle more coarse black pepper over the sticks while on the racks. I know this is a lot of components but its just the way it has turned out over time and is worth it. The sticks are sweet, silghtly hot and have the slight flavor of teriyaki, maple, smoke and pepper. The venison seasoning adds the bite or back bone to this recipe. It is simular to Hi Mountain taste which is a sought after jerky taste by many. The venison seasoning is only $3 for a 12oz bottle which will do 240 pounds of meat as used in my recipe. If you desire more bite, use 1 1/2 T of venison seasoning. But it will over shadow the sweet, hot, maple flavors somewhat.
Chris