I’ve made about 350 pounds of beef snack sticks within the last couple weeks. The sticks turned out pretty good but I feel that there’s always room for improvement. The snap, smoke, and flavor is good. The thing I’m trying to nail down is the texture. Any master beef stick makers on here have any advice for improving the texture? I’m wondering about the grind size and length of mixing time? Do I need more protein extraction? Would the texture be better with a higher fat to lean ratio? 80/20 compared to 70/30? Also is there any go to additives that would help with the texture? I’m wondering if the amount of water added has a significant effect on the texture as well? A lot to think about here but any help is appreciated!

I work for a new meat processing facility that recently just bought a Mauting Smokehouse. When we got it installed we only got a few smoke cycles programmed into it. I was wondering if anyone else on here has a Mauting Smokehouse and wouldn’t mind helping me out with some more smoke cycles. Im mainly looking for some cured pork loin cycles as well as a pulled pork cycle. Any help or direction on where to find more cycles would be greatly appreciated.

So I am wondering what the preferred method is for grinding beef and pork trim into ground product. I recently just got a new mixer/grinder and I am looking into all the different sizes of plates and knives that I can buy for it, such as 1/4", 1/8", 3/16". As far as methods go, does everyone prefer switching plates for a course and fine grind? Just course grinding twice? Any other methods that anyone prefers? I will be mixing in seasonings for pork sausage, snack sticks, summer sausages, and other further processed products like that into the mixer/grinder. Just wanting to figure out the best plates to use to make the highest quality ground products that I can.