Water in my sticks

[Doug Kapfenstein]

I am fairly new to the world of stick making so I’m still unsure of a few things. Today I made a batch (10 lbs) of sticks. I use an ounce of water per pound. These were all beef. After they got up to temp (165) I removed them and put them in ice water and usually I leave them in the ice/water for about ten to fifteen minutes but today I was in no hurry and it probably ended up being about half an hour or so. When drying them so I could cut them to length I noticed they had what seemed to be water under the casing in a lot of them. I use collagen casings. Did I do something wrong? Will the water evaporate out if I let them set for a day or two before vacuum sealing them? Could this be because they sat in the ice bath for that long? Hope it doesn’t affect the sticks too bad. Thanks for any helpful suggestions

[Lost River Jones]

I just made a 5 pound batch today and I used 7.5 ounces of water for 5 pounds … more than I ever used and noticed no difference. I also added 1.6 ounces of dry milk for 5 pounds. When I say no difference I mean no negative difference. I am using venison and 20% pork and Willie’s Snack Seasoning.

[Jonathon]

Doug Kapfenstein I’d think your biggest issue is that you cooked to 165 with beef when 160 would have been perfectly fine. That 5 degrees might not sound like much but it probably took you at least half an hour to get to that temp and that can have an effect. As to why they were allowing water between the casing and the meat I would imagine that is a protein extraction issue, if you don’t get a good bind you can let the fat render out of the meat and it gets trapped between the casing and the meat which would allow water to get in there as well.

You wont really know until you try them though! It might be a purely cosmetic issue and the texture and taste might be spot on.