My two favorites are Buffalo Blue Cheese with high temp blue cheese chunks or Philly Cheesesteak with high temp provolone cheese chunks.

Chicovt We all face challenges when learning a new process. I think as mentioned above this is a seal orientation issues which most of us have done at some point. You can either fix the problem and re-try the stuffing operation or loose pack the seasoned meat and cook it as part of sauce or possibly even grill it. Never toss your creations, always look for a way to use them or give them to someone who is willing to try something different. In the worst case chickens can always use the protein boost, I have never made anything they won’t eat. Most importantly don’t give up and ask for help when you need it.

charlie That sounds like a great combination. You will be fine without ECA, carrot fiber and sure gel. These products help to create a moister product with a better mouth feel but I have made plenty of snack sticks without additives that were great for friends and family. They might have a shorter shelf life but I am sure if you follow the directions you will be happy with the finished product. Remember without encapsulated citric acid you will need to hold them in the refrigerator overnight before going to the smoker. Good luck and most of all enjoy making your own snack sticks!

When making venison summer sausage I use 17 pounds of lean and 8 pounds of pork fat so I don’t think dante322 is far off. My experience in terms of saltiness has been similar when using Excalibur’s H Summer Sausage seasoning so I don’t use it anymore. I don’t think the stalling issue is related to the seasoning and cranking it up to 185 will definitely give you wrinkles and oil. Hopefully this won’t offend the sponsor of this great site but I find Deer Hunter summer sausage seasoning to be the best flavor profile when using wild game or very lean meat. It also produces a better texture for some reason. I am using ECA and cold phosphate regardless of the seasoning and my meat/fat ratio is also consistent. Just my 2 cents…

lamurscrappy I am going to try the distilled water mix today and I will do the dehydrator test this week. I won’t know if water is the issue for a few weeks but I am certainly hoping that it is. For this particular product I don’t have option of adding fat. I do that when I making batches for myself but these clients want 100% lean product. They know the fat adds some nice flavor but they are quite content with the flavor of the lean meat and moisture content when I use carrot fiber. Thank you again for your input.

hinoon I make a lot of snack sticks with very lean meat including venison and goose. My first attempts were much the same as you describe. The fat content you are describing is exactly what I use. How much fat/grease is at the bottom of the smoker when the batch is finished? When I have tried to do a 10 pound batch in a small smoker it can take 18 or more hours to finish if you are sticking to the maximum temp of 170. The small heating elements can’t produce enough heat to bring the meat up the desired temperature in the time most of us are willing to spend making a batch of snack sticks. When we urn up the heat to shorten the cook cycle the fat melts out and the sticks taste dry. On a positive note the jalapeno seasoning you chose produces one of the best game snack sticks I have ever tasted once you get the ratios and cook process figured out.

Doug Kapfenstein I think we need more information to help out. How big are the batches? What smoker are you using? Smoking on sticks or racks? 145 will definitely produce a little softer stick but not mushy. Can you tell us a little more about the consistency? Are you mixing long enough to get good protein extraction? Hand or mechanical mixing? What is your cook cycle? Sorry for all the questions but any of these factors will affect your final product.

terry129 I have experienced the same result with many of the seasoning blends. There are certain flavors like TexMex, jalapeno and habanero lime that typically produce a very flavorful product. Some of the others like buffalo blue cheese need extra seasonings to suit my palate (I add more than a quart of franks red hot buffalo wing sauce for 25 lbs). The seasonings are designed for the masses not necessarily those of us looking for a more potent flavor to compliment something like venison. Someone else posted a reply to a similar topic and stated that adding seasoning to the stock mixture to enhance the desired flavor will usually give you the product you are looking for. If you like the pepper flavor in Willies snack stick recipe gradually add more to each batch until you get the desired results. As has been already stated only one change at a time and keep good notes. As for encapsulated citric acid over smoked meat stabilizer for snack stick, my advice is resounding yes if you are going right from the stuffer to the smoker and the tang will complement the seasoning you are using. Some of the flavors I make don’t seem to benefit form the tang provided by encapsulated citric acid so I hold those overnight in the cooler before going to the smoker. I don’t use smoked meat stabilizer for those seasonings either because I am using a fair amount of water to aid in stuffing and there is a warning about the possibility of producing possible an undesirable gas in this scenario. I hope this is helpful.

Rusty Paul I am using well water. I did some research and this is something I want to eliminate as a possibility. My next batch will be the exact same process using distilled water. I’m not sure this is the answer as we don’t really have a lot of lime scale or white build up with our well water but certainly worth a try.

daveomak It doesn’t melt. I will try less water next time.

glen I am not adding any additional salt and I am using 25lbs of lean meat. I am concerned about using less seasoning and producing a safe product. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Jonathon No to the vacuum tumbler as it is restructured jerky. 25lbs of lean alpaca meat is double ground down to 3mm and mixed with 1-2 quarts of water, seasoning and cure packet in 44 lb mixer for about 3-5 minutes. Extruding it on paper strips and dehydrating it in my weston commercial dehydrators until it reach 155-160. I cool it in my meat walk in cooler (34 degrees 85% humidity) for a day then move it to the packing room (45-50 degrees, 30-40% humidity) for about 4-6 hours and then chamber seal it with a VP545 with and without nitrogen. It doesn’t seem to matter how moist or dry I make the jerky the same thing happens. I have also tried adding carrot fiber to the mix, same result.

I really needed to figure this out to be sure this product was safe so my first step was to put it under the microscope. Not a great picture compared to what I actually saw but you can make out the crystalline structure what I am guessing to be salt. Now the question is why…

sstory This is alpaca meat so there is no fat and we typically use only use prime cuts for jerky. We also trim all the silver skin off before doing a double grind. Also this white stuff forms at -10 degrees so probably not mold.

glen It looks more like white powder or micro crystals. It is not fuzzy or greasy. I have another picture that I will post later but I wanted to get a little feedback first just to see if anyone else has seen this.

I have been making restructured jerky for a couple years now and if I store my chamber sealed jerky for more than a month I get a white substance on the jerky. It doesn’t seem to matter what I do it always seems to appear over time. I am using waltons jerky seasonings as per the instructions and using a commercial dehydrator going to the correct internal temps. I can chamber seal it with or without a nitrogen flush and still get the same result. This happens at room temp, refrigerator or freezer. I do have some idea of what is happening but I would like to hear from others as to what they think. See attached pictures.

Ed_Orum Tenderquick and Sure Cure are not the same and are not interchangeable. Sure Cure #2 is 5.67% sodium nitrite and 3.63% sodium nitrate whereas Tenderquick is about .5% Sodium Nitrite and .5% Sodium Nitrate. Tenderquick also contains other ingredients that are not in Sure Cure. If you are making cooked pepperoni stick with the cure that is specified by the recipe you are following so you will add the correct amount sodium nitrite/nitrate to result in a safe product. I am wondering if the recipe calls for Sure Cure #2 or #1. Most cooked/smoked pepperoni recipes I have specify #1. In case you were wondering Sure Cure #1 and #2 are also not interchangeable. I hope this helps.

lamurscrappy That is great tip. Thank you.

Walton’s products are an excellent start to making shelf stable snack sticks but the process is really the key. If you understand the chemistry and cooking process you can make very stable products. If you want to be absolutely sure about the stability of your finished product you will have to invest in some testing equipment and use it on every batch. As for actual experience without the testing equipment I have seen excellent shelf life on batches that were handled properly and cooked correctly. As you get more experience you will be able to tell which batches are going to last and which ones are not. If everything goes well on my batches I can store chamber sealed snack sticks in the freezer for over a year, in the refrigerator for 3-6 months and at room temperature for at least 2-3 weeks. It took me many batches and lots of storage testing to see what works and what doesn’t. Do your homework on safe food handling and cooking temperatures and you will save a ton of time and materials. It also extremely helpful to reach out a commercial snack stick processor for tips and suggestions. Most I have contacted are very willing to help smaller processors that are only making a few batches a month. Hopefully others will weigh in on this and give you enough information to get you headed in the right direction.

Rusty I am using a low power heating element to bring the temperature up very slowly. I preheat to 140 but as soon as the snack sticks are loaded the temperature goes down to around 110. It takes 2-3 hours to dry the casings thoroughly without overheating them. I smoke at 130-140 for 2-3 hours and then bump up the temp to 150 for 2 hours. I then raise the temp to 160-170 depending on how the product looks and feels. I hold this temp until I get the desired results which can be several hours. The internal temperature can be anywhere between 152-162. I find this low power, slow cook method to be very forgiving and very consistent. I remove the snack sticks from the smoker and give them a fairly quick cold water shower and then hang them in the meat cooler. When they are completely cool I move them to a 50 degree low humidity room for 6-12 hours then chamber seal them. I’m not sure this really helps much as there is a lot of time and equipment involved in the process I am following.