Seeing
Steve H
post last week pushed me over the edge. I finally broke our the stuffer and learned how to use it. No idea why it has intimidated me. Shout out to
chopsaw
for answering the zillion questions I had a long the way. This is my first successful batch because my first 12 lbs batch went in the trash. I messed up and put the ECA in 24 hours in advance, it set up like a rock and I added way to much water. All the spices leeched out with the water and it yielded what tasted like a lemon in meat form lol. Back to the drawing board and simplified with advice from Rich I went with the basic Leggs 114, cure 1, small amount of liquid smoke, whey isolate for binder and a small amount of water. Here they are stuffed and ready to rest over night before smoking.
I smoked them in the Smokin Tex with a ramp up starting at 120F to dry then 130, 140 for an hour each before going to 160 for the duration. Herw they are out of the smoker, had to pull at 125 as I was running out of daylight.
I went to sous vide naked , 155 water temp to finish the meat to 152.
I will not sous vide naked again at all. I've seen some of you have success with it but to me it washed away all the good smoke on exterior. Color faded a ton. Next time I'll make sure to start early enough to finish in smoker. People love this though. Here is a cut shot
All in all pleased with this although I want a more pronounced flavor and smoke on future batches. You can see the color loss on the finished sticks. I'll be making many more as I work out recipes. I'm probably going to go off the sausage deep end now LOL. Thanks again to
chopsaw
and thanks for looking.



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