I have made a lot of jerky and summer sausage with no issues over the years. When trying snack sticks I really struggled with my stuffer on doing it by my self. So in the last podcast I asked about using my grinder to stuff. I have a #22 grinder. So I just gave it a try. Things seemed to work pretty well, consistent run of casing fill and seemed to go well other than really slow. When I went to finish the first run of casing I noticed the meat coming from the grinder was white and not brown/grey as I would have expected. Is this white meat ok to eat? After reading other areas I realized the encapsulated citric acid must have broke open. Never had this issue as I used a stuffer and not the grinder in the past. Do I continue to stuff or just throw this batch out? I have the first bunch on the smoker but still another 17 lbs to stuff. Thanks for any advise.

It is ground pork and ground beef, mixed 2/3 pork, 1/3 beef. 20% fat content. Honey Granules, Salt, Dextrose, Onion powder, black pepper, Mustard, Garlic Powder, Sodium Erythorbate (0.5%). It is all fresh meat from a pig we just butchered, and beef that was packaged but looked good when I ground it. I reground the ground beef with the pork. It looked the normal tacky grey when I was done mixing, just like all the summer sausage I would normally due. I did put it in the freezer for 20 minutes or so to make it easier for the grinder to suck in. I was also using a gel pack on the grinder throat.

I did add maple cure in with the mix. It was ground to start with on a 3/8" grind and I ground it a second time at the 1/8" grind. Only ground twice. The third step was mixing in a 10 gallon mixer adding the spices and the maple cure. Then using the grinder to stuff with. So it wasn’t ground again but just run through the main grinding house and then the stuffing tube. Let me know if that makes sense and your comments still apply. The first batch came off the smoker at 155 deg, then a water bath, I then dried and set out to get to room temperature. Once there I tried one and it is good, still a tang to them, a little limp but still had good flavor. Any thoughts would be great.

I have had several masterbuilt smokers over the years and they did really well…until, the one I just threw away. It lasted just over a year, I only use it for summer sausage and sticks during winter deer hunting…until, I tried 8 pork butts on it for a grad party and with the last two just finishing up, and grease tray emptied every couple hours the thing went up in flames. Masterbuilt was not very helpful but out of warranty so I understand. Anyways, I have been looking at pellet and natural gas smokers. My masterbuilt always gave me a lot of smoke flavor, my current pellet grill (pit boss and camp chef) just don’t give me a great smoke ring with out adding an additional smoke box. Anyone using a pellet fired vertical smoker? Do you see better smoke volume vs the standard pellet grill? The propane I have heard rumors of an off taste due to the propane? I know a few topics hear but any comments would be appreciated. Thanks Tom