Gamebird Gourmet Pheasant Snack Sticks
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Gamebird Gourment Pheasant Snack Sticks
Learn how to make homemade pheasant snack sticks with Walton's and Meatgistics. Watch the video, read the guide, and then post your questions or comments below
What Is A Snack Sticks?
Snack Sticks are a meat snack and semi-dried sausage that is stuffed into a smoked collagen casing and then hung in a smokehouse for cooking. Many Snack Stick will have a pH between 4.5 and 5.2 to give it some shelf stability and the classic tangy flavor. They are most often made from pork and beef but almost any protein will work when making a snack stick
Meat Block
10 lb of Pheasant Breast
2.5 lb of pork straight pork fat or 10 lb of untrimmed pork butts
1 Bag of Willies Snack Stick Seasoning 13.5 oz for 12.5 lb
1 oz of Sure Cure (Included with purchase) 14 grams for 12.5 lb
Water (2 lb per 25 lb batch of meat) 16 oz of water for a 12.5 lb batchOPTIONAL Additives
1 Bag of Sure Gel 3 oz for 12.5 lb
Encapsulated Citric Acid 2 oz for 12.5 lbEquipment
Walton’s #22 Meat Grinder
Walton’s 50 lb Mixer
Walton’s 11 lb Sausage StufferCasing Preparation
We are using 19mm Smoke Collagen Casings which will fit easily over our 12mm stuffing tube. These casings require no preparation, simply take them out of the package and put them on the stuffing tube.
Process
Make sure your pheasant breast is properly trimmed and all bones have been removed. Start out with mostly frozen breast, we had it frozen to the point where we had to use a serrated knife to cut it into chunks that would fit down the grinder and that worked wonderfully.
Grinding
Make sure your plates and knives are sharp and lubricated with white oil. Grind all Pheasant breasts through a 3/8" plate one time. Then grind again through a 1/8’ plate and add pork fat at this point. The fact that it was still partially frozen sped up the 2nd ground significantly.
Pork Fat -
If you are adding just pork fat to your meat block you should add somewhere between 20-25% of the weight of your pheasant meat in fat. In this case that meant we added 2.5 lb and we added that while we were grinding, this allows it to start mixing in with the pheasant as it grinds. We also made sure the pork
fat was almost frozen to help it grind faster and better.Pork Butts -
If you are adding pork butts make sure that they are untrimmed, meaning that they have a good fat cap on them and that the skin is removed off of the pork butt. You will be able to tell if the skin is still on by looking for small hair follicles if you see that then the skin is still on and you will need to trim that off while leaving as much fat as possible on the meat.
Meat Mixing
Next, you need to mix the seasoning and cure into your meat. To do this you can either use a meat mixer or do it by hand. Because this is a product that we are going to cure and smoke we need to achieve a high level of protein extraction so doing this with your hands is difficult but can be done. When using a mixer add the meat to the mixer, then the seasoning and cure and finally the water, you will want to mix in both directions until all seasoning and cure have been mixed in and you have good protein extraction. You will know that a good level of protein extraction has been achieved when the meat is sticky and tacky if you can pull a handful of it apart and it stretches that is a good sign.
Sausage Stuffing
Next, choose the largest stuffing tube that your casings will fit over and begin stuffing. Stuff until the casings are full and smooth but leave yourself enough room on the end to close with a hog ring.
If you can just faintly see a swirl pattern running down the casing that means you have stuffed them correctly if that pattern is obvious then they are understuffed which will lead to excessively wrinkled casings and an odd texture.
If you cannot see that pattern at all then you have overstuffed the casings and you run a risk of the casings popping when you hang them in the smokehouse.
Note
If you added Encapsulated Citric Acid or other cure accelerators you need to go directly from stuffing to smoking. If you did not use a cure accelerator of some sort then after you’ve stuffed everything the product has to be held in the refrigerator overnight to allow the cure time to work.
Thermal Processing & Smoking
Set up your smoker and hang your sausage on smoke sticks or lay on racks and smoke at
125F for 1 hour
145F for 1 hour
160F for 2 hours
180F until internal meat temp of 165FWhen they have reached 165° internal temperature remove from the smoker and put them in an ice bath to bring the heat down and help set the casing.
A water bath is not sufficient for this, the water needs to be ice water or shower them with a fan pointed at the hanging sticks.
Cooling
Lastly, leave them out at room temperature for about an hour before vacuum packing them, this will ensure you don’t get additional moisture in the vacuum bag which would affect the shelf life of your meats.
Wrap up
The light taste of pheasant really makes finding pork fat instead of pork butts a big difference, the pork fat has little flavor and light color to it, allowing the seasoning and the pheasant to stand out!
Other Notes
Depending on your pH and your Water Activity your sticks might be shelf-stable but without a way to test this you should vacuum pack and refrigerate these and since these are wild game they wouldn’t be considered “shelf-stable” technically.
Watch WaltonsTV: Basics For Making Summer Sausage
Shop waltonsinc.com for Bratwurst Seasoning
Shop waltonsinc.com for Meat Grinders
Shop waltonsinc.com for High-Temp Cheese
Shop waltonsinc.com for Boning Knives
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blackbetty61 and PapaSop Both have ensured their stockings will be filled with more than coal as far as I am concerned!
If either of you has time could you watch the Venison Snack Stick and let me know if you feel the same about that one? We are getting ready to do A LOT of wild game processing videos and I just want to make sure that we are on the right track.
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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blackbetty61 and PapaSop Both have ensured their stockings will be filled with more than coal as far as I am concerned!
If either of you has time could you watch the Venison Snack Stick and let me know if you feel the same about that one? We are getting ready to do A LOT of wild game processing videos and I just want to make sure that we are on the right track.
Jonathon I really liked this video as well and I think you did the same format on the Venison snack stick video as well. You can tell a definite difference between these and past “How to” style videos you guys have done. To me it is obvious that the quality of the content and presentation is getting better with each video you guys put out. Keep up the great work!
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blackbetty61 and PapaSop Both have ensured their stockings will be filled with more than coal as far as I am concerned!
If either of you has time could you watch the Venison Snack Stick and let me know if you feel the same about that one? We are getting ready to do A LOT of wild game processing videos and I just want to make sure that we are on the right track.
Jonathon
Excellent. Just as well done. Definitely on track with this format. Couple of side notes.Sanitation: Great idea on this. Something I do every time no matter what type of meat. Perhaps worth a mention in all videos.
1/16 plate? Have never used one and didn’t know they were an option. 1/8 is smallest I have and so far yet to use it. Plan on using it for hot dogs after the holidays. Does Walton’s even sell them?
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Jonathon
Excellent. Just as well done. Definitely on track with this format. Couple of side notes.Sanitation: Great idea on this. Something I do every time no matter what type of meat. Perhaps worth a mention in all videos.
1/16 plate? Have never used one and didn’t know they were an option. 1/8 is smallest I have and so far yet to use it. Plan on using it for hot dogs after the holidays. Does Walton’s even sell them?
PapaSop I forgot about the 1/16th plate thing, I don’t even think that is a thing. My guess is he either meant a 1/8th or 3/16th but gave us a combination of both.
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blackbetty61 and PapaSop Both have ensured their stockings will be filled with more than coal as far as I am concerned!
If either of you has time could you watch the Venison Snack Stick and let me know if you feel the same about that one? We are getting ready to do A LOT of wild game processing videos and I just want to make sure that we are on the right track.
Jonathon the venison video is equally as good as the pheasant one…I like the way you explain everything in detail in these new improved videos…great job
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PapaSop i said it at least 3 times that week for some unknown reason! Absolutely should have been 1/8 so…not a perfect video
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltonsinc.com youtube page at https://wltns.link/waltonstv I am a Gorilla, love yourself
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PapaSop i said it at least 3 times that week for some unknown reason! Absolutely should have been 1/8 so…not a perfect video
Jonathon no worries!
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Jonathon said in Gamebird Gourment Pheasant Snack Sticks:
Venison Snack Stick
I’ve never used encapsulated citric acid, but it sounds like a good addition to stick making for me. In the video you did not specify how the acid is added. Is it dissolved in water or added dry? In the note section of the write-up, if I understand the process correctly, you may want to specifically add that the sticks should be smoked immediately after stuffing.
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MT Elk Hunter You would add it during the last 60 seconds of the mixing process to prevent the encapsulation from rupturing and I wouldn’t mix it with water first. The encapsulation wqill stand up to room temperature water without any problem but I’d just add it dry as you are mixing. I had verbiage saying something like “If you added ECA you can skip this step” But I am going to change the order so that is first and a little more clear on what you can skip, I can see someone getting confused and thinking that they can skip the first step of smoking. Thanks!
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MT Elk Hunter You would add it during the last 60 seconds of the mixing process to prevent the encapsulation from rupturing and I wouldn’t mix it with water first. The encapsulation wqill stand up to room temperature water without any problem but I’d just add it dry as you are mixing. I had verbiage saying something like “If you added ECA you can skip this step” But I am going to change the order so that is first and a little more clear on what you can skip, I can see someone getting confused and thinking that they can skip the first step of smoking. Thanks!
Jonathon When you think about the order changes, don’t forget to mention that you prefer to add the encapsulated citric acid dry. In addition, if you update your already excellent “Cured Sausage: 202 Using Encapsulated Citric Acid” viedo, think about clarifying your dry preference. About 45-60 seconds in the video, the encapsulated citric acid is added to water and the comment is “leave that little bit of cotton seed oil over the top” which confused the issue for me. Thank you for all the generous time you and the others provide and take my commentary as constructive and nothing else.
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