Meat Processing

@wrobben4848 While the recommended time is 12 hours, and that is what will give you the best result, you can cut that time down to 8-10 hours without too much difference. You might not get the meat to burn a really nice reddish/pink but since you are making jerky you don’t need to worry about that too much, you just want the curative properties. Good luck!

Good to know! Thanks for the quick response!

@TinCupTom I can’t confirm that it works with a Cabelas brand stuffer but what I can do is give you the OD of the back side of the flange of our stuffing tubes which is 2 - 1/16th of an inch, they are all the same for all Walton’s sizes of stuffing tubes. So if you measure the flange on one of your stuffing tubes and it is the same then you “should” be able to use it. I’m not sure what the tolerance for variability would be here but I would have to imagine there is some allowance for error, so I’d guess if you were 2 inches heavy (less than a 1/6th of an inch) that it would work! Yes, the diameter it mentioned was the OD. I’m not sure about the plastic piece but the ID of our 10mm stuffing tube is 5/16th of an inch, if that helps? Now, if you are wanting to make 19mm (that’s the size I recommend by the way!) then you don’t need to use a 10mm stuffing tube, a 12mm should work fine for 19mm. Unless maybe yours came with a 10mm and the next size up is 20 or something? If that is the case then a 10mm will still work just make sure you are holding the casing onto the tube so it actually fills all the way up!

@christian-beckman POkay, well then as long as you are planning on using the type of smoke (cook) schedule we recommend then there is no reason that the Encapuslated Citric Acid (ECA) wouldn’t work perfectly for your needs! Pepperoni Sticks are great and I love it when they have lots of tang! When I made pepperoni here this year my one regret was putting ANY smoke on them, they were better just with the seasoning and the ECA!

@Danbow Back when I was in customer service I know I talked to someone who either said his wife did it exactly how you are explaining it or I talked to the woman who did it, I wonder if I was talking to either you or your wife?! Wrapping it in foil would keep more moisture in the product, same basic process that some people do when they are smoking ribs. I can absolutely see how this would work and I think the way she is doing it, without a casing, would be more effective when wrapping it in foil. I don’t think you’ll ever convert me from using a casing but we might be making some updates here and when we do I might have access to an oven and will give this a try!

@kstrantz If you look at our meatgistics articles for a specific product we usually have links to all the additives we used in that video. Let us know if you have any questions on how to use an additive or when to use one! One of the reasons it is not added in is that it would then need to be used and you would not have the option of using something else, or nothing at all. It is the same reason the cure is not added directly to the seasoning before packaging. This way you can make a bratwurst out of a seasoning that is designed to be used to make a summer sausage!

@tincuptom

@heagerty666 Good question! Some people let it come to room temperature first but we don’t recommend it. As long as you start out your smoker at low heat you don’t need to be overly worried about blowouts. For both of those products, I would recommend starting at 125 for an hour if you have a smoker that is capable of handling such a low heat. The problem with letting it come up to room temperature is the possibility of growing bacteria in the meat that could affect the taste and safety of the meat. As long as it is stuffed correctly and brought up in stages you won’t have an issue.

@vjbutler Yes, snack sticks keep becoming more and more popular! When you say loosely packed I am assuming that they are in meat bags right? Yes, if you can come up with something that works well please share your experience and process. When you said several hundred I was thinking 3-4 not 1,000 lb! It sounds like you have a plan the only thing I will say again is to try small batches first, though from your previous response I am sure you were planning on this already. If you need some help with the formulation let me know and I can run it past our application specialist to see if he has any input.

Thank you Austin, I understand it now. I wish all the meat syringe companies would listen to their consumers. The reason I say that, is it’s extremely hard to find needles that can handle a thick marinade without clogging up. And the needle/draw off spike, has a large enough spout to handle but isn’t designed for that. I have a great injector but wanted to by this for speed of injecting. This should be fine with a bacon brine and we will soon find out as butcher weather is approaching. Thank you again Austin.

@mts1829 I was able to get some time with our application specialist today and he said there shouldn’t be anything health-wise that would be an issue, he just said it’s unnecessary. So I think your plan to just go with the ECA is a good one!

@matt93 Yes, keeping it cold is going to be your best bet here without a doubt. Adding ECA during the last 60 seconds of mixing is always best practice, and that might be where you run into the real issue. I still say there is a chance that it is okay. You might get some breaking from the mechanical energy of the paddles but hopefully, it won’t be too much! I do all of the cleaning here of equipment when we are done with videos (@Austin always feels bad about that!) but I honestly don’t mind it, pop on a podcast and I am good to go! There won’t be a real difference between letting it sit for a few hours and going directly to the smoker, the only real issue will be if some of the encapsulation broke from the mixing. As for how quickly it permeates that’s 100% dependent on how well it is mixed into the meat. ECA needs to be at 135° for about an hour before it totally breaks down.

@1grinder Merry Christmas and good luck! This is a hard time of the year to lose any weight, at least at my house, but it can be done with some will power!

@reprice I think you are correct if you reduced the water a little that would clear up and stop happening. I’m not sure if a trip to the fridge would help this but it certainly wouldn’t hurt so I would recommend you do that as well! Also, I’m not sure if you used a binder or not but that might also help. I’d go with either Sure Gel or Carrot Fiber. Let us know how the next batch goes!

@mtnjim Yes, you won’t have any problems stuffing them into fibrous casings and making a summer sausage, off the top of my head I can think of two Excalibur Seasonings that actually say Summer Sausage / Snack Stick in the name, so this isn’t something that would be uncommon! The process of Snack Sticks and Summer Sausages are very similar. Both are going to have the same fat content (ideally somewhere in the 70/30 range) both with be ground through a 3/8 and then a 1/8, you would mix both until they have protein extraction so the only real difference is the seasoning, the casing and the time it takes to smoke them! Good luck, you should be fine and your mix sounds awesome, though I think I have already told you that!

@jonathon thanks will have a look

@houstonsmoker bringing you snack sticks and summer sausage to 160 is key for a long shelf life. My first time making snack sticks I did not make sure they got to the proper temp and had mold problems within a week. After that I went to the 160 mark and have had no issues with spoilage. I have had them in the fridge over a month with no,problems.

Hunting skills and a high powered rifle!

i’d have to look at my notebook but i’m pretty sure we use 1oz for 20# of meat.

@gadahl Thanks for the compliments! It’s great to see people absorbing this information and putting it to practical use, that is the purpose of all of this afterall. I absolutely agree on the Bacon, super simple to do either way but being able to inject one day and then smoke the next makes injecting it the way to go in my mind. As for the Will it BBQ? section it started out as just doing some interesting things on the BBQ but it has quickly evolved into a competition to see who can come up with the weirdest thing to try! It got really strange when we started taking suggestions on what to try next. We have some unappetizing ones coming up that seem more like a dare than anything else but they should be fun, for us at least!