Finally got around to making some snack sticks. It was my first attempt. They seemed to come out all right. Made 10lbs of sticks 4 lbs of brats and 4.5 lbs of jerky. I've got the LEM 5lb stuffer man do I love that thing. One thing I discovered is that my snack stick tube needs to be longer. I can only fit about three feet of collagen casing on it at a time. I started the process at 4:00 in the afternoon and wasn't finished until midnight. That seem like a long time but I am very cautious about sanitary issues. So I am continually cleaning my cutting boards and knife between one product and the other. I wash the grinder parts before I stuff wash the stuffer before I grind etc. so it adds alot of time.
Initial grind for the SS, you know the meat is cold when there is condensation of the grinding chute.
Stuffing the sticks went really easy. Could not even imagine trying to do this with a stuffer.
Stuffed some brats with the left over pork.
Sliced up the rest of the bottom round for jerky about 4.5 lbs total. This wasn't the best meat for jerky. There was alot of marbling in the meat. I probably should have just ground it for hamburgers. The jerky came out all right but I was no where near as good as some of my other jerky.
Pulled the snack sticks out of the fridge the next morning and hung them at room temp for an hour while the smoker warmed up. Il was surprised at how easily they balanced on the door. It was the only place that was high enough to hang them. I had one snack stick that was almost four feet and alot that were three feet.
Hung the sticks and smoked with a mix of oak and hickory. From the top of the hanging rods to the drip pan is three feet. Most of the sticks could of been left to fully hang down instead of having both ends tied to a rod. I was worried of temperature differences at different heights so i tied them up. Smoked for two hours and took almost four hours in total to reach IT of 165.
Sorry for no finished product shots but my camera battery died during the process. Snack sticks came out very well. Nice color great shriveling. The flavor was good in the hickory sticks but not much flavor at all in the bourbon blend. The bourbon blend sticks also seemed to be rather moist in comparison to the hickory. I used the same grind and amounts of water. I'm not too concerned about it though. I figure there cured, and will be in the fridge or vaccumed packed and frozen.
Overall I learned alot being that it was my first attempt at sticks.
Lesson 1: 10lbs equals ALOT of sticks. I was really surprise at how many sticks there were. If you look at the last picture there are three hanging sticks deep sausage. It was fun to make but being my first attempt it went slow. When I started I thought I would be done in a few hours.But because I overestimated the amount of meat I needed (not sure what I was thinking at the time) I ended up with alot of extra meat that needed to be processed. All in all I was at it for about 8 hours.
Lesson 2: Do not soak collagen casings prior to stuffing. I knew not to and stuffed with dry casing and everything went well. I have read where other have asked as to whether to soak or not to soak. I had to readjust some of the strings on the end of the sticks today and noticed that after being exposed to water the casings were much weaker.
Lesson 3 Make sure to leave enough string on the end of your sticks to make loops for the hanging stick. A newbie mistake for sure but most of my strings were short and some I even cut off last night after I tied them so they looked neat not thinking about the fact that I would need to make loops the next day for hanging. so then I today I had to retie alot of them to have enough string to hang.
I like the Hi-Mountain hickory blend but found the bourbon blend to very lacking in flavor. Probably will just use the rest of it for jerky.
Initial grind for the SS, you know the meat is cold when there is condensation of the grinding chute.
Stuffing the sticks went really easy. Could not even imagine trying to do this with a stuffer.
Stuffed some brats with the left over pork.
Sliced up the rest of the bottom round for jerky about 4.5 lbs total. This wasn't the best meat for jerky. There was alot of marbling in the meat. I probably should have just ground it for hamburgers. The jerky came out all right but I was no where near as good as some of my other jerky.
Pulled the snack sticks out of the fridge the next morning and hung them at room temp for an hour while the smoker warmed up. Il was surprised at how easily they balanced on the door. It was the only place that was high enough to hang them. I had one snack stick that was almost four feet and alot that were three feet.
Hung the sticks and smoked with a mix of oak and hickory. From the top of the hanging rods to the drip pan is three feet. Most of the sticks could of been left to fully hang down instead of having both ends tied to a rod. I was worried of temperature differences at different heights so i tied them up. Smoked for two hours and took almost four hours in total to reach IT of 165.
Sorry for no finished product shots but my camera battery died during the process. Snack sticks came out very well. Nice color great shriveling. The flavor was good in the hickory sticks but not much flavor at all in the bourbon blend. The bourbon blend sticks also seemed to be rather moist in comparison to the hickory. I used the same grind and amounts of water. I'm not too concerned about it though. I figure there cured, and will be in the fridge or vaccumed packed and frozen.
Overall I learned alot being that it was my first attempt at sticks.
Lesson 1: 10lbs equals ALOT of sticks. I was really surprise at how many sticks there were. If you look at the last picture there are three hanging sticks deep sausage. It was fun to make but being my first attempt it went slow. When I started I thought I would be done in a few hours.But because I overestimated the amount of meat I needed (not sure what I was thinking at the time) I ended up with alot of extra meat that needed to be processed. All in all I was at it for about 8 hours.
Lesson 2: Do not soak collagen casings prior to stuffing. I knew not to and stuffed with dry casing and everything went well. I have read where other have asked as to whether to soak or not to soak. I had to readjust some of the strings on the end of the sticks today and noticed that after being exposed to water the casings were much weaker.
Lesson 3 Make sure to leave enough string on the end of your sticks to make loops for the hanging stick. A newbie mistake for sure but most of my strings were short and some I even cut off last night after I tied them so they looked neat not thinking about the fact that I would need to make loops the next day for hanging. so then I today I had to retie alot of them to have enough string to hang.
I like the Hi-Mountain hickory blend but found the bourbon blend to very lacking in flavor. Probably will just use the rest of it for jerky.
