How To Make Homemade Snack Sticks

[YooperDog]

George T they could be. What was your cooking schedule?

[Jonathon]

brogers I’ll let someone else give their opinion and I will just deliver the company line, without a way to measure water activity and pH they should be vacuum sealed and left defrosted for no more than 5 days. Now, that is the company line for safety, in reality it will be different.

George T Sadly, yes, they probably sat for numerous hours between 40-140 degrees making them the perfect breeding ground for somenasty stuff.

[jbh222]

Can you use this recipe and make it in either the oven or in a dehydrator? How would you alter the recipe? Can this recipe also be made in a smaller batch and how would you do that?

[Tex_77]

jbh222 Can’t help you with the oven or dehydrator question. However to scale the recipe down divide the ingredient quantities by 25 to get the amount needed for one pound of meat, then multiple by the amount of meat you are using.

[Jonathon]

jbh222 That is going to depend on your oven a little. How low will it start? How hot will your dehydrator get? You might be best served starting off in the dehydrator and then moving to the oven, if you’re dehydrator starts as low as 120 (which shouldn’t be a problem) putting them in there 1st and then moving them to the oven for cooking might be your best bet.

What you will have to deal with here is case hardening in the dehydrator. You want the outside of the casing to be dry(ish) to let the smoke adhere, you don’t want to remove all of the moisture from the edge of the sausage though, if that happens you might not be able to pass heat efficiently into the middle of the snack stick.

[keoni02]

Hi. I’m relativvv… ok. I’m new! LOL So this will be the first time making snack sticks with the Sure Cure and carrot binder. Also, I’m only doing 2 or 5 pounds of meat at a time.
So say I wanted to just 2 lbs…
-Carrot binder - 2 tbsp + 1 tsp
-Sure Cure - 1/2 tsp
-water - 2.5oz

Mix meat, carrot binder, sure cure, and water together. Then do you stuff it into the casings and let it rest in the refrigerator over night; smoke the next day… does that sound correct?

[YooperDog]

keoni02 there is a conversion selection in the drop down menu that will help you break down your additives, cure and seasonings on the left side of the page. I would recommend using sure gel instead of carrot fiber if you have it. Snack sticks are a semi dried style sausage and carrot fiber will hold up to 26X it’s weight in water and sure gel will help with adding a bit extra protein during protein extraction. Both will work, but typically carrot fiber is used in fresh sausage to help with juiciness and sure gel in cured sausages. Your numbers appear to be okay, I just haven’t done a batch that small of cured sausage and I go by weight.

[keoni02]

YooperDog
Oh yeah, I have the conversion post bookmarked! LOL. Thanks for the tip on the sure gel vs carrot fiber!

[Jonathon]

keoni02 Welcome to the addiction! How did they come out? Also good point YooperDog carrot fiber better for fresh sure gel better for cured sausage.

[keoni02]

OK. So heres what happened. I got all excited because everything finally arrived to start making 2lb test batches. Well somebody didnt read thigs right on the website and ordered the wrong 3/8" tube, not the one that was actually for their stuffer (LEM 5lb). OOPS! Well before I returned it, I checked to see if it would fit my jerky gun and it did. So I kept it for that and ordered the correct one for my stuffer. Those Jerky guns dont hold a whole lot, and I was having issues with air pockets that I obviously did a poor job with getting out, but the rest I had no issues with air. My thought was, for experimentation sake, do 1lb of each flavor in the smoker and one in the oven. So all the batched looked good, they felt good in the casings, the cooked well too and everything temped out correctly… except for the first batch, there must have been too much air cause when you bit into it, it was just mush (and that came out of the smoker). Aside from that one 1lb batch, the rest were pretty much the consistency I was looking for. The flavor on the other hand, not so much. But that can be easily remedied by adding more seasoning and continuing to practice with small batches until I get exactly how I want it.
Also, YooperDog, thanks for the tip. I’ll try that once I use up the carrot fiber.

I do have a question though. Once you add in the Sure Cure and mix everything, how long can it sit in the fridge for? I ask cause my schedule at work is ever changing. So like today, Sunday, if I made up the mix and stuffed the casing, would they still be okay to smoke on Tuesday?

[Jonathon]

keoni02 If you are not adding a cure accelerator like Encapsulated Citric Acid or Sodium Erythorbate you will need to hold it about 12 hours to allow enough of nitrite to start breaking down into Nitric oxide. Sorry, just reread your question and realized you are asking how long. So again with no accelerator Sunday-Tuesday you are ok. If you added a cure accelerator it would depend on other factors like how was the Encapsulated Citric Acid mixed and you wouldn’t want to hold it any longer than 24 hours if you added sodium erythorbate. That speeds the conversion up and you might lose a decent amount of curing power. Having said that though, you would most likely be fine with 72 hours though I wouldn’t recommend it.

[keoni02]

Excellent. Thank you

[keoni02]

I have another question. If I’m making snack sticks, is there any reason I can’t use the bratwurst seasonings in my snack sticks?

[processhead]

keoni02
I am not sure if I can answer your question, but here are some things to think about.

Most bratwurst recipes are fresh sausage recipes and have less salt and no added cure.

Most snack stick recipes are a cured and cooked product that have somewhat higher salt levels to aid with shelf stability and curing.

Assuming you wanted to make a bratwurst flavored snack stick, I think you would need to adjust the salt levels and add cure before cooking/smoking.

The result would be something with quite a different flavor profile than a freshly grilled fresh bratwurst. You would taste the seasoning, but being cured and cooked/smoked it would be different.

[keoni02]

So basically there is a Parmesan Garlic Bratwurst seasoning and I’d like to do that flavor in a beef snack stick.

[processhead]

Assuming that this is the seasoning you are using,
https://www.waltonsinc.com/parmesan-garlic-bratwurst-seasoning

I would add 1 oz of cure powder #1 to the meat and spices while mixing and process it like any other snack stick recipe as far as stuffing and thermal processing.

Since you are deviating from a proven recipe, I would strongly recommend making a smaller test batch and frying up a sample to check on the flavor/ saltiness before stuffing and smoking . You can make seasoning/salt adjustments to tweak the flavor before committing to a larger batch size.

If you do a smaller test batch, remember to scale down the seasoning and cure powder #1 proportionally.

This sounds really interesting. Be sure to let us know how it turns out.

[Jonathon]

keoni02 I agree with processhead (as usual) make a small batch to test it out. I would start at using it at a ratio of 4/5th the amount of meat (20 lb of meat to a 25 lb batch of seasoning) and then just fry up the results to see how it goes. Absolutely use sure cure if you are going to smoke it.

[processhead]

Jonathon said in How To Make Homemade Snack Sticks:

keoni02 I agree with processhead (as usual) make a small batch to test it out. I would start at using it at a ratio of 4/5th the amount of meat (20 lb of meat to a 25 lb batch of seasoning) and then just fry up the results to see how it goes. Absolutely use sure cure if you are going to smoke it.

Just curious Jonathon, is reducing the seasoning by 4/5 because of the added drying and overall moisture loss in the meat during thermal processing?

[Jonathon]

processhead It is a combination of that and the fact that the salt content 'needs" to be higher in the cured sausages because the salt plays a functional role as well as taste. Good question.

[keoni02]

Yes, processed, that is the seasoning I was looking at trying. I really want to try a Parmesan Garlic flavor of beef snack sticks. I’ve been only doing 2lb test batches as it is. And I have been frying up meat to test, as you mentioned Jonathan, however the fried bit always has a different flavor than the smoked… a stronger and better flavor when fried than smoked. Honestly, kinda disappointing flavor smoked cause it is so subdued compared to fried.

Jonathan, I already know the amount of cure I need for a two pound batch but what would I use for the seasoning? I looked at the conversion chart but it wasn’t listed.