Been wanting to make some pepperoni sticks for a while now and finally jumped in, was in Bass Pros right before the new year and bought some Lem seasoning and some casings to try. Never made this before and was hoping my Jerky Gun would work to stuff the sticks.
Went to the store to get some burger and found some BOGO, jumped on a couple of packs. Wasn't till I got home and realized I had one with 80/20 and the other 90/10. Was not going back so I mixed 2 lbs of each together hoping for the best.
Used scale for 4 lbs of burger, then added mix and went to work. Here it is before getting covered and into the beer fridge for the nights rest.
Found out the attachment on the Jerky Gun was too big, made a quick trip to Bass Pros and found the one shown here and also picked a couple of tubes so I would not have to reload as often, made a big difference.
Got a couple of tubes loaded and ready to go.
Put some paper down on the counter and started mixing 2 lbs batches, I also added Citric Acid and mixed up good before stuffing. One thing I learned from reading other posts and I am glad I did is to add a bit of water to the mix to make it go through the tube a bit better.
Got everything loaded in the MES30 at 2:00, used a mixture of Pecan pellets and dust in the AMNPS. Had a bag of each almost empty, put the pellets against the heating element.
The MES30 does not like to hold good temps when trying to stay low, I played with the element on/off and changed the setpoint quite a few times over the course of the day, ended up running at 190 deg for awhile before the IT reached 160, here they are cooling off in some ice water.
.
Because the outdoor temp was going to be around 35 deg just hung them over the line on the screened in porch. Need to thank NEPAS, had a question about the blooming part and gave me some good suggestions. THANKS NEPAS. Finished at 10:00 that night, here they are in the morning.
Next two pics show them after bringing inside then after cutting the ends of to get ready for the bags.
All packed up ready for freezer, pretty sure they will not last long.
This one never made it to the bagging area.
Read a lot of posts on this site about making sticks, I know it made a world of difference when I finally jumped in. Thanks to all.
Gary
Went to the store to get some burger and found some BOGO, jumped on a couple of packs. Wasn't till I got home and realized I had one with 80/20 and the other 90/10. Was not going back so I mixed 2 lbs of each together hoping for the best.
Used scale for 4 lbs of burger, then added mix and went to work. Here it is before getting covered and into the beer fridge for the nights rest.
Found out the attachment on the Jerky Gun was too big, made a quick trip to Bass Pros and found the one shown here and also picked a couple of tubes so I would not have to reload as often, made a big difference.
Got a couple of tubes loaded and ready to go.
Put some paper down on the counter and started mixing 2 lbs batches, I also added Citric Acid and mixed up good before stuffing. One thing I learned from reading other posts and I am glad I did is to add a bit of water to the mix to make it go through the tube a bit better.
Got everything loaded in the MES30 at 2:00, used a mixture of Pecan pellets and dust in the AMNPS. Had a bag of each almost empty, put the pellets against the heating element.
The MES30 does not like to hold good temps when trying to stay low, I played with the element on/off and changed the setpoint quite a few times over the course of the day, ended up running at 190 deg for awhile before the IT reached 160, here they are cooling off in some ice water.
.
Because the outdoor temp was going to be around 35 deg just hung them over the line on the screened in porch. Need to thank NEPAS, had a question about the blooming part and gave me some good suggestions. THANKS NEPAS. Finished at 10:00 that night, here they are in the morning.
Next two pics show them after bringing inside then after cutting the ends of to get ready for the bags.
All packed up ready for freezer, pretty sure they will not last long.
This one never made it to the bagging area.
Read a lot of posts on this site about making sticks, I know it made a world of difference when I finally jumped in. Thanks to all.
Gary