Seasonings

[Davejr7979]

Has anyone used like McCormick packets or other brands along that line to season meat sticks before smoking? Been looking at seasonings lately and a lot of them I used to use went way up in price and the shipping is crazy. Don't have anywhere local where I can purchase them. If so which ones have you used or recommend. Any info or ideas is greatly appreciated

 

[chopsaw]

I've used sausage seasonings I have in the pantry . Bratwurst and Italian sausage .
I made a smoked sausage using Old Bay seasoning .
Tried some taco seasing one time . If you use something like that , You'll need to figure out the salt adjustment , if any .

You can always mix your own . Start with the salt percentage , then add spices that you like .
Plenty of info and advice here .

 

[in. pred]

i was happy with the leggs summer sausage mix i just used. i think walmart has it? its good in stick form too. taste test small batches in skillet as you go.

 

[chef k-dude]

This page has a seasoning recipe

I like to make my own seasoning mixes and sauces. Start with a base recipe and make small batches for individual cooks. Adjust the ratios to my liking and then I have a recipe for life and dont have to rely on anyone's packaged products. Of course I keep a lot of the base spices and herbs on hand, some in large restaurant sized containers. I cant help with shortcut buyout mixes, the only one I have that I'm using now is Garam Masala but that would make a pretty weird snack stick...or would it?...

 

[tallbm]

Has anyone used like McCormick packets or other brands along that line to season meat sticks before smoking? Been looking at seasonings lately and a lot of them I used to use went way up in price and the shipping is crazy. Don't have anywhere local where I can purchase them. If so which ones have you used or recommend. Any info or ideas is greatly appreciated

Hi there and welcome!

Owens and AC Leggs should be some options for you to check out. I also like a few flavors of LEM's as well.

As others have mentioned you can mix up your own. If you look at the ingredients list on the back of a Mccormicks seasoning pack I bet money the first four ingredients are some combination of salt, pepper, onion, and garlic.

US food laws state that ingredients have to be listed in order of most to least. So if Salt is the first ingredient then there is more salt in there than anything else and rule of thumb is that you should not have more than 2% salt added to the total weight of your sausage/meat.

So that is a good way to start reverse engineering how much pre bought seasoning to add to your meat, but never skimp on following their directions for 1 pound, weighing out the amount of seasoning and writing down, then doing a fry test on a little bit of that 1 pound of meat and seeing if it is too salty or too bland.
Then add/reduce amounts and get new weight until you figure out how much seasoning tastes good for 1 pound of meat. Scale up by weight at that point.

I hope this info helps :D

 

[Straw_Sticks_Bricks]

I've used Lem, Hi Mountain, and PS Seasoning packets. Overall I'd say Lem was the best, Hi Mountain the worst, and PS in the middle. All of them were okay to good but none of them were great. They all had the same issues to my palate, too bland and the spice mix wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I tend to use the packets as a baseline when I try a new style of sausage or jerky. Then, based on the results I have a better idea of what I want from the style. After that, I look at recipes for ideas and make my own blend. Once I've tuned the blend to my liking, I make a spreadsheet recipe for it. I set it up so that I can put in the weight of meat I'm using and the spreadsheet will automatically calculate the weight of each ingredient I need.

My go to source of spices is The Spice Way brand at Amazon. The combination of quality, price, and selection is quite good for my purposes.

 

[JckDanls 07]

Do yourself a favor and check out Owens bbq ... You'll thank me later... While your at the site go ahead and order sone Tatonka Dust... That stuff is killer good...

 

[dward51]

AC Legg and Owens are what I use. You can find AC Legg many places so shop around. Amazon is probably NOT the least expensive place to buy unless it's coming from the company. My local grocery store even carries their #10 breakfast sausage mix and will order the snack stick stuff for me (#116 is what I use). They are the lowest price I've seen. It's an independent grocer store and not a chain.

 

[in. pred]

i use this place. they also have their own mixes that are good.

https://millerscales.com/