Using Cold Meat <1–(Meat Fact Title) -->

When making homemade meat snacks like Jerky, Summer Sausage or Snack Sticks at home it is important that you keep the meat as cold as possible before and during processing. This isn’t only to keep the meat out of the “danger zone” that zone between 40 and 140° F that bacteria will grow most rapidly, though this is important. The other reason is that it is going to make things easier and give you a better-finished product.

Slicing <1–(Way to Overcome or use to advantage, try to add link to product) -->

When slicing jerky a cold almost frozen piece of meat will slice much easier, cleaner and more consistent than a warmer piece of meat. It will help prevent the meat from “tailing” where it fails to cut through the back edge of the meat and creates what looks like a tail on the piece of meat that is on the carriage.

Grinding

When grinding meat for Sausage you will notice that close to frozen meat will grind much quicker than warm meat. This might be surprising but it is giving the auger a more solid surface to push down the throat of the grinder and towards the plate and knife. This is especially effective on the second grind of meat where we are typically using a plate with smaller holes as well as trying to force already broken down meat towards the plate and knife. Since the meat is in a much softer form at this point it has a tendency to spill back over the auger instead of traveling forward as it should. On a second grind, you can often finish 2 to 3 times faster when your product is ice cold vs when it has just been taken out of the refrigerator

Stuffing

You will notice a significant difference when you are stuffing your sausage into casings. This happens because as you cool the meat especially the fat, it becomes less sticky. This means it will take less energy to turn the crank and push the meat through the tube and into the casing, not only will it be easier to stuff but your meat will be less likely to cause problems inside the casing as well.

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