Snack Sticks too firm
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I think case hardening from too high of temp and drying too quickly on dry cures are different in their own ways
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rjh2 case hardening is when you run at a starting high temp in your smoke/cook cycle. It cooks the outside layer of casing and meat leaving the inside to not get the proper thermal process it needs. Your cook cycle definitely throws a red flag out to me, it is not your typical schedule one would use for sausage but if you have done it that way before and been ok then something could have also been a factor. Perhaps temp probe readings faulty. What seasoning were you using? Have you used this same seasoning before with success?
twilliams yeah, my cook cycle is what it is because my smoker’s temp controller only goes down to 150 deg. I make up for starting a little high by holding it there for a longer time. I’m pretty confident my smoker is holding temp well and like you noted, this is always the way I smoke sticks and they usually turn out good. The two problem batches were with two different seasonings and I have used each seasoning several other times without issue.
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twilliams yeah, my cook cycle is what it is because my smoker’s temp controller only goes down to 150 deg. I make up for starting a little high by holding it there for a longer time. I’m pretty confident my smoker is holding temp well and like you noted, this is always the way I smoke sticks and they usually turn out good. The two problem batches were with two different seasonings and I have used each seasoning several other times without issue.
rjh2 said in Snack Sticks too firm:
twilliams yeah, my cook cycle is what it is because my smoker’s temp controller only goes down to 150 deg. I make up for starting a little high by holding it there for a longer time. I’m pretty confident my smoker is holding temp well and like you noted, this is always the way I smoke sticks and they usually turn out good. The two problem batches were with two different seasonings and I have used each seasoning several other times without issue.
Using a smoker without good low range temperature control can make it more difficult to get consistent results.
People have absolutely figured out ways to work around this, but it still can have a negative impact when making sausage in a smoker designed for high temperature cooking and smoking. -
rjh2 said in Snack Sticks too firm:
twilliams yeah, my cook cycle is what it is because my smoker’s temp controller only goes down to 150 deg. I make up for starting a little high by holding it there for a longer time. I’m pretty confident my smoker is holding temp well and like you noted, this is always the way I smoke sticks and they usually turn out good. The two problem batches were with two different seasonings and I have used each seasoning several other times without issue.
Using a smoker without good low range temperature control can make it more difficult to get consistent results.
People have absolutely figured out ways to work around this, but it still can have a negative impact when making sausage in a smoker designed for high temperature cooking and smoking.processhead Are you thinking that by smoking at 150 for the first three hours, some batches will come out good and some will come out firm and chewy?
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twilliams Would you not have a hard outside and mushy inside with case hardening?? It has never happened to me with something I cook but did happen to me with one of my salami because my humidifier crapped out on me
Dr_Pain that would make sense and I am not 100% sure on that but with the temp at 180* to finish it I have a suspicion that it did get the meat inside cooked in his process. Only other thing I can think of is when you do a jerky process and you remove all the water through heat and drying. But it’s really stumbling me since he has had good results before with the same process
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processhead Are you thinking that by smoking at 150 for the first three hours, some batches will come out good and some will come out firm and chewy?
rjh2 Re-reading I can’t say I have much better thoughts on what happened but I would like to share what I do in order to stick to a better thermal cycling schedule.
I noticed that you mentioned that your smoker does not go below 150F. Are you smoking on a pellet smoker? If you do maybe you could try my method. I smoke my stick on my Louisiana Grill and I turn the pellet grill on to get to about the right temp and then shut it down (I have a smoke tube just to keep smoke going). I have a thermometer taking the ambient temp and when it cools too low then I turn the grill back on. It is a pain but a process that has yet to fail me (in the absence of funds for a dedicated smoker). I go through the cycling and normally finish my cooking with sous vide
This was a small batch using that technique. I have since made a bunch more
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rjh2 Re-reading I can’t say I have much better thoughts on what happened but I would like to share what I do in order to stick to a better thermal cycling schedule.
I noticed that you mentioned that your smoker does not go below 150F. Are you smoking on a pellet smoker? If you do maybe you could try my method. I smoke my stick on my Louisiana Grill and I turn the pellet grill on to get to about the right temp and then shut it down (I have a smoke tube just to keep smoke going). I have a thermometer taking the ambient temp and when it cools too low then I turn the grill back on. It is a pain but a process that has yet to fail me (in the absence of funds for a dedicated smoker). I go through the cycling and normally finish my cooking with sous vide
This was a small batch using that technique. I have since made a bunch more
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processhead Are you thinking that by smoking at 150 for the first three hours, some batches will come out good and some will come out firm and chewy?
rjh2 said in Snack Sticks too firm:
processhead Are you thinking that by smoking at 150 for the first three hours, some batches will come out good and some will come out firm and chewy?
I can’t say that is what is happening.
If it were me, I would be monitoring my smoker temps with a known good thermometer and verifying that the internal temp probe on your smoker is giving you an accurate and consistent reading without extreme temperature swings.
At this point, I think I would want to rule out my equipment as a potential source of the problem since it sounds like the rest of your process is on-point, -
Maybe get a good thermometer/probe and put it in the grill. Then are you able to run it by not starting the charcoal and just burn small blocks of wood in the Ash bin to get to lower Temps? Just wondering because it just picked up a 1050 on clearancebut haven’t put it together yet to try just wood in the Ash bin to see how Temps run. Because I was wanting to experiment using it to make sticks and jerky too
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I’ve seen this with both snack sticks and summer sausage. It appeared in my case that I slow cooked the sausage in the smoker too long without adding humidity. I believe I cooked too much of the moisture out of the meat giving it a hard almost rubbery texture.
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I’ve seen this with both snack sticks and summer sausage. It appeared in my case that I slow cooked the sausage in the smoker too long without adding humidity. I believe I cooked too much of the moisture out of the meat giving it a hard almost rubbery texture.
bpschuebel Thanks. I have a batch of goose sticks in the smoker right now. I’ll make sure I don’t run out of water. I made sure I had plenty of fat in this batch and cut back on the mixing time to 6 minutes total. I just fried up the waste mix and it was very good, not rubbery at all. So, that is a good sign. The problem batches were noticeably firm when I fried up the waste from them. Still not sure which variable or variables caused the problem batches but I’m going to be more diligent about controlling all of them in the future.
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