what to mix with goose/duck snack stix?

[aftershox454]

hey guys-

alright I did some snack sticks a while back out of the box and liked the flavor I got but was not pleased with the texture- very crumbly and inconsistent-

i have another round of shot up birds coming my way and want to redo the snack stix with some other ground meat mixed in-

the obvious choice for me is beef as it is already ground- but i do not know how it will mix-

anybody out there have some reccomendations as far as what to mix with duck/goose and if it is beef- what lean to fat ratio do you use- 80-20, 93-7 ?

any hep would be great-

thanks in advance

Alex

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Hi Alex,

One thing you'll need to consider is total fat content. I make a chicken sausage from thigh meat, and I add beef fat to reach a total fat content of 15-18% by weight for a relatively lean sausage. Anything under 15% I've found to be too lean, and it can get dry/crumbly after smoking. I do a cured mix with TQ, and this helps so I can cold smoke and then transition to a hot smoke...great results with this amount of fat in a cured mix.

If you were going to add another meat into the mix, say 50/50 duck/beef, you'll need 35% fat in the beef to get 17.5% fat content.

I use beef trimmings from brisket when I trim/separate before smoking. I bag it up and freeze to save until the next sausage grind.

For straight beef jerky strips or sticks I use 85/15 ground chuck.

Eric

 

[aftershox454]

as always thanks for the great help eric!

 

[mballi3011]

Now you definatly need some fat in your sausage. I normally use pork from a butt or shoulder. Now you can keep some of the fat that you trim off a brisket or a ham and use it too. I always just throw my trimmings in a baggie and weight them and then freeze them for later use.

 

[coffee_junkie]

I mix my duck and geese 50% duck with 50% (80/20) pork butts. Sometimes I back off a couple of pounds of pork butt and add 2lbs of pure pork back fat. Always really good!