Smoke or no smoke

[twilliams]

Is smoke on a snack stick a do or die thing? Do people must have a smoke flavor on their sticks? Im thinking about doing the cook schedule without adding smoke. Are there certain flavors that you may not want smoke? For example i will be doing ranch and fajita. The thought of smoke on those is, eh! Also going to be doing Bourbon Peppercorn ( my favorite), willies, pizza and mandarin teriyaki. Just wondering if the flavors would pop more without smoke. Also anyone add extra ingredients beside the normal seasoning to these flavors?

KEEP THE BURN ON THE COALS NOT ON THE MEAT!!

[processhead]

I think smoke definitely compliments some flavors but probably not all of them. One example I can think of that does benefit from smoking is garlic and black pepper in sausage.
Some of the Asian stick seasoning flavors might do just fine without the smoke.

I have to admit I have not tried some of the less traditional stick seasonings. I would gladly sample them, but just have not been inspired enough by the descriptions to make a full batch.

[TexLaw]

Give it a whirl and see. If it’s no good, you can do a cold/cool smoke to put a little smoke on 'em.

[magician176]

Wow! now you have me thinking! Yeah, are smoking a do or die thing! I use smoke on our traditional “Russian” sausages because that’s what they did back home. I also was thinking of using liquid smoke, never used it before, can you give me your thoughts on that?

[twilliams]

magician176 i would recommend hickory smoked powder rather than liquid smoke. I have never used it but they talk it up pretty good in here.

[processhead]

magician176 said in Smoke or no smoke:

Wow! now you have me thinking! Yeah, are smoking a do or die thing! I use smoke on our traditional “Russian” sausages because that’s what they did back home. I also was thinking of using liquid smoke, never used it before, can you give me your thoughts on that?

When I first made snack sticks 15 plus years ago, I did not have a smoker and did them in the oven using liquid smoke added to the sausage mix. At the time, they were the next best thing to actual wood smoking. If I were to do it today, I would probably try the hickory powder flavoring.

Liquid smoke is pretty concentrated and unless you dilute it, and take some precautions when mixing, you could run some risk of not getting even smoke flavoring throughout the batch.

[glen]

I used to mix liquid smoke with the other liquids when not using actual smoke
lately I prefer most sausage, especially cured without smoke and only do it when requested

[magician176]

processhead Thank you, I will keep that in mind.

[magician176]

glen Another good tip, thank you Glen

[mdseaside]

I have used both liquid smoke and smoke powder. I like the smoke powder the best. Much more like real smoke. Just start out light and work up to what you like. May take a batch or two.

[smokinbubba]

I used the powder for the first time with my last batch of bambi bologna since was sous vide cooked and never saw the smoke house. I was very impressed. Used the conversion chart for the proper ammt

[craigrice]

magician176 it depends on the concentrate of the liquid smoke as to how much to safely use some are meant to be atomized in a smoker and some are meant to be added to product

[keend0]

I have tried Willies with smoke powder and without cooked in an oven. They were both very good!

[twilliams]

So i went ahead and smoked the ranch and fajita sticks currently as i type this. I just wanted that nice mahogany color. However instead of using hickory i used apple, also instead of smoking 4 hours i only did an hour and half. So hopefully i get the color with very minimal smoke flavor allowing the ranch and fajita flavors to pop nicely.

[twilliams]

Ranch and fajita sticks are out of the ice bath and in the drying process…WOW is all i can say!! So glad i tried these flavors

[processhead]

Thanks for the report. Will have to put those two on the list.