HI,
I’m in HCMC Vietnam & brand new to making snack sticks, I have no access to pre-made seasonings or smoker, talked about on forum but I have access to dried spices, salt cure no#1, hickory liquid smoke.
My question is;-
Does anyone have a recipe for beef snack sticks I can try using dried spices for 2lb of beef?
Any help would be great.

Jonathon said in Roll Call (Start Here First):

AndyHCMC You can make snack sticks/pepperoni/summer sausage in your oven. To get a smoke flavor I’d recommend you use hickory smoke powder or the like. There has to be something like that available over in Vitenam? If not be careful using any liquid smoke. In meat processing sometimes it is used by smokers to spray onto the sticks so if you get that stuff it is often concentrate so you could easily add too much smoke flavor and overpower anything else. Experiment with propping your oven door to see if you can bleed off heat and stabilize the top or bottom rack at 120-130 or something around that?
Hi Jonathan, I’ve received my measuring equipment and checked my benchtop oven with door top left open I can maintain 125f (with door closed lowest is 140F).
So after our conversations about ECA not being available here and only hickory smoke liquid, plus no pre-made seasoning packets, do you have a starting point recipe with dried spices for me to try making snack sticks? quantity of each spice and smoke oil for a 2 lb batch?

YooperDog Keen on breakfast & trying snack sticks but dont have access to all the pre-made packets etc that are mentioned on forum.
Have made pork but used panko breadcrumbs, after watching the breakfast sausage video i’ll skip the crumbs and see how they work out.

I’m trying to find ECA here in Vietnam so far no luck, I’ve got a benchtop convection cooker that has 100C/212F - 250C/480F dial on it and below the 100C it shows a further turndown to “Min” so I will figure out what the “Min” setting is when I get my thermocouple for temp meter.

If it goes down to 120-130f I would like to try snack sticks - I’ve just bought a whole load of dried spices and ordered some salt cure no1# from a local shop.
Anyone have a mix of spices I can try for the snack sticks?

Looks like from your map page I’m the only Vietnam member?

I wonder if that’s worth a free bag of sausage mix for snack sticks sent to HCMC Vietnam hahahhaha
Update: I have just managed to find a product made by WIBERG - Germany called, Frischex A Natural Preservative ingredients are : Sodium acetate, Ascorbic acid, Sodium chloride. could I use this instead of ECA?

Jonathon said in Roll Call (Start Here First):

AndyHCMC Sorry, everything we do is in F. The only thing we do in C is the rule of 15 for inedible collagen and that is 15 minute soaker in 15 degrre water that is a 15% strength salt solution!

I have just ordered a thermocouple for my digital thermometer gun I’ll turn it on to min and leave for 30 min and see what it goes down to.

Meanwhile I’ve watched your video on making snack sticks, curing salt - i’ve managed to find online here curing salt no1# & smoke powder but so far I cant find any mention of ECA only bags of citric acid, there is not a great need for shops for sausage making here except casings (they only sell white or yellow in collagen and sheeps /hogs natural) due to the locals making their own variety of chinese style just about all sausages are imported and sold in gourmet butchers, any ideas on what I can use instead of the ECA? There are no pre made spice mix packs that everyone on the forum mentions that I can find, anyone have a list of fresh/dried spices I can use instead?

I also have a home bench mixer for cake, bread making with a dough hook and k blade for cake mixing could this be used for small 2-4lb batch meat mixing for protein extraction?

Jonathon said in Roll Call (Start Here First):

AndyHCMC You can make snack sticks/pepperoni/summer sausage in your oven. To get a smoke flavor I’d recommend you use hickory smoke powder or the like. There has to be something like that available over in Vitenam? If not be careful using any liquid smoke. In meat processing sometimes it is used by smokers to spray onto the sticks so if you get that stuff it is often concentrate so you could easily add too much smoke flavor and overpower anything else. Experiment with propping your oven door to see if you can bleed off heat and stabilize the top or bottom rack at 120-130 or something around that?

120-130 f or c? My benchtop is in C it goes down to around 60C then up to 250C
Its a Sanaky model VH-5099S2D, it has a control for bottom & top heating elements and combination plus with ot without fan.

Orange & Blue, well I do like Blue and Orange sounds a bit gay wasn’t Red available? hahaha
I stuffed into natural sheeps casings and they blow during cooking even at 100c/202f which is the lowest on my induction cooker I’ve tried no oil and a little oil, they split or blow out the ends, I even took meat out of casings and stuffed again loose and did the links with 1/2 twists so room to expand, they still blow.

Now I’m new to sausage making so no screaming at me, the only breadcrumbs I have are panko breadcrumbs - here in Vietnam all the local bread is stuffed with sugar and no way do I like sugar tasting sausages so thats all I have I can buy local.

I think the panko crumbs are swelling up as soon as the heat hits the water and fat? but as I said I’m new to it all.

I linked the sausages I made and put them in the freezer maybe I can slow cook them in the oven or boil first ?

Over to you experts,

Oh the recipe I used was for Lincolnshire sausages
1kg pork
250g fat
250g panko breadcrumbs
250ml iced water
spices pepper salt

calldoctoday said in Roll Call (Start Here First):

& don’t forget, Go BLUE

Being new here I don’t get the Go Blue reference?

Hi,
Australian living in HCMC Vietnam, had a electric cheap mincer/stuffer for a couple of months, made a couple of below average batches of pork sausages just bought a 3kg/7lb 2 speed stuffer.

I made some more pork sausages and I have a leaking problem with the meat when I stuff, I was using the 15mm tube and 20mm casings it blows out on the right hand side.

I live in a smallish apartment so limited in equipment storage and usage, would love to make snack sticks but no way I could use a smoker in the apartment, I do have a 50l benchtop oven is there anyway I could use this to make more than just breakfast sausage?

Could anyone point me in the right direction to head next to learn info on the above points?

Thank you.