How To Make Homemade Snack Sticks

[skibumben]

fourgonefishn I am not an expert but I would say Cure #1 (sodium nitrite) is required. Primarily because your snack sticks will be in the danger zone for an extended period of time as you are slowly cooking them. The cure allows you to maintain a safe environment until you hit 160 degrees (point of lethality).

Secondarily, the cure gives the meat a nice color as opposed to looking grayish.

Others may know differently but that is my understanding.

[fourgonefishn]

When I order willies season will it come with cure or separate purchase.

[fourgonefishn]

Oh yeah I will be using my dehydrator and it does go to the required low temp.

[skibumben]

fourgonefishn looks like it does include sure cure based on product description so you should be all set!

[akdave]

Not a expert in making snack sticks by any means, have only made 6 batches, but after doing a lot of reading about the hot water bath to finish snack sticks I am convinced it is the way to go. I got mine to 140-150 degrees in smoker and then finished them in large steam table pan full of 160 degree water and in 10-20 minutes they were up to 160 internal. then put them in cold water bath, had picture perfect results and was certain that they were all evenly up to temp as they are soo long it is hard to get them all at the same temp in my smoker even with two convection fans.

Dave

[fourgonefishn]

Thanks everyone

[PapaSop]

fourgonefishn
When you order the Willies it will come with a cure package…use it. The only time I’ve not used a cure is for a fresh sausage. You must let this sit overnite or 12+ hours for the same reasons skibumben said. Not sure about using a dehydrator to finish this. Never done it that way. I smoke these to around 140 and then to a hot water bath to finish. You can go straight from stuffing to smoking if you use ECA or the smoked meat stabilizer.
Hot water finish is totally the way to go. Check out Parksider on this. Good info.
Good luck!

[Jonathon]

fourgonefishn I would recommend starting it in an oven and getting it to 160° IT before moving it to the dehydrator. Sticks in the dehydrator can be dicey unless you can get your dehydrator up to 180 or so and it doesn’t like you can. Now, it is cured, so you MIGHT be ok but starting in the oven will be a better idea for safety.

[fourgonefishn]

Thanks for all the help. Will take everything into consideration.

[Randyman]

How much water should I use for a 5 lb batch of snack sticks? I’m using Walton’s Pizza blend and have 4 lbs beef and 1 lb pork with about a 70/30 meat to fat ratio. I’ll be using carrot fiber and ECA as well.

[Jonathon]

Since you are using carrot fiber you can use anywhere from .2 to .4 of a qt of water, which would be 3.2 to 6.4 oz of water. The more water you add the easier it will stuff but the longer your cook cycle will be as the water has to be cooked out!

[mosales]

I smoked my snack sticks last night. I used my Meater to watch temps. It works well other than you cant get to far from my PK100 with my phone. I see you can us IPad or another phone. Has any one connected to there Apple Watch? If so how did you do it? I was looking for away but couldn’t figure it out.

[Jonathon]

mosales It should work with an Apple Watch. I’ll give it a shot tomorrow, mine was eaten by my monster of a dog but we have a few people at work who have them.

[mosales]

Jonathon it would be great if you find away. It would make running smoker over night much better as I wear watch and could leave phone close to smoker.

[sbtech]

Hi
I have sent questions thru the w pepperoni page and received a confirmation from email but have not got an answer just yet. My question is I bought everything to make pepperoni sticks from w pepperoni seasoning. I have carrot binder and encapsulated citric acid and sure cure. I plan on putting them in casings. I planned on making with beef but my wife wants the first batch in turkey. Do I use everything and do the quantities change that I planned on using for the amount of meat.

Thanks in advance

[Joe Hell]

sbtech It seems like I remember a similar question around here somewhere and Jonathon recommended reducing the seasoning slightly but I could be mistaken.

[sbtech]

Joe Hell Thanks Joe, I have looked every where and still have not found anything on it. Hope someone can give me a place to get this info.

[Jonathon]

sbtech So, pepperoni from turkey huh!? Should be good, we did some out of snow goose recently (https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1911/meatgistics-university-wild-game-goose-pepperoni-sticks?_=1591139642283) and it was awesome. I would recommend you add pork fat at about a 20% ratio for best results. If you don’t want to add pork fat I have used Carrot Fiber and Cold Phosphate before and gotten good results with turkey in that past https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/415/how-to-make-a-juicy-homemade-turkey-bratwurst I dont think it is as good as the pork fat but it is a work around.

If you are going to add more seasoning per lb, and I would only recommend this if you weren’t going to add pork fat, then I would only do a small amount more, like 3-5% to combat the lack of fat. Still use the same amount of sure cure and carrot fiber and ECA. You should be good!

[sbtech]

Jonathon Thanks Johnathan, I am going to get started this morning.

[jramey]

If I want a more shelf stable stick, but I’m also adding citric acid, could I refrigerate the meat over night after mixing and adding sure cure. Then, come back the next day and add in the citric acid, stuff, the cook? Is that even necessary, or does the addition of the citric acid at first mixing almost act like a cure in its self?