I have been enjoying the results of this years deer harvest. The latest product will be venison sticks. Ground and stuffed on 12/31/15 then rested in the fridge. Sorry no pics of that process. Into this smoker today...now we wait! Here is the general recipe I followed and some qview of course. I ground the venison and pork through the course plate on the Kitchen Aid then added the black pepper, garlic powder, TQ and sugar. Mixed well and back through the fine plate. Then separated the batch into thirds for three different flavors using three different pepper spices I made from my garden this summer. I then added 1 heaping tablespoon of ECA (1tsp/lb) to each batch and the pepper seasonings to flavor each. One also got ~10% of the meat weight in high temp cheddar.
Venison Snack Sticks: 10lb batch
7lbs ground venison
3lbs ground pork shoulder
1T black pepper
1T garlic powder
1T sugar
5T Tenderquick
1tsp/lb of meat ECA added after grinding
Here are the pepper spices I used.
And this is a Peter pepper for those wondering. They are quite hot.
Smoker loaded just before 12:00pm. This was the maiden voyage with my new LEM 5lb vertical stuffer. They turned ok but room for improvement, a few air pockets here and there. 120F for 2 hours with no smoke.
Installed this needle valve last week. Not sure why I didn't do that sooner! Much easier to control temps.
My new christmas present loaded and ready to go. Unfortunately using Traeger hickory pellets for this smoke until I can get some "real" pellets ordered.
2pm: Bumped up to 140F and added smoke. Lit both ends because I didn't feel like it was smoking enough with the Traeger pellets. Will go up 10*/hr until I get to 170, then go until IT is 152F.
I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out! I am a rookie sausage maker but have been accumulating equipment so I hope to keep making more.
Venison Snack Sticks: 10lb batch
7lbs ground venison
3lbs ground pork shoulder
1T black pepper
1T garlic powder
1T sugar
5T Tenderquick
1tsp/lb of meat ECA added after grinding
Here are the pepper spices I used.
And this is a Peter pepper for those wondering. They are quite hot.
Smoker loaded just before 12:00pm. This was the maiden voyage with my new LEM 5lb vertical stuffer. They turned ok but room for improvement, a few air pockets here and there. 120F for 2 hours with no smoke.
Installed this needle valve last week. Not sure why I didn't do that sooner! Much easier to control temps.
My new christmas present loaded and ready to go. Unfortunately using Traeger hickory pellets for this smoke until I can get some "real" pellets ordered.
2pm: Bumped up to 140F and added smoke. Lit both ends because I didn't feel like it was smoking enough with the Traeger pellets. Will go up 10*/hr until I get to 170, then go until IT is 152F.
I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out! I am a rookie sausage maker but have been accumulating equipment so I hope to keep making more.