@jonathon thats good information. So when your done cooking jerky either dehydrator, smoker or oven you should pull all the meat and put it into a food safe/usda container. For home use a large ziploc bag will do. Let it sit in that container for about 6 hours covered slightly but allowing excess moisture to escape and come back. But do this at room temperature, do not immediently package, eat, or put in a cooler right after its been cooked. It needs time to finish itself and even out. Moisture is going to return to the meat and the jerky will heat up a bit and help even all the meat out so its roughly cooked and dried to the same level. After that 6 hour mark is when a good time is to package the meat. Preferably a vacuum sealer or a tight package with a scavenger. Only after the meat is packaged should you put it in a cooler. Never put freshely made jerky directly into a cooler/refridgerator it needs that time to rest at room temperature.

@vjbutler Is your end product a dense , firm , dry stick similar to “real” pepperoni ? What size grinder die do you use ? 1 or 2 grinds ? Thankyou very much VJ , as soon as l know your whole process l will try it myself barring the 50 degree room which is difficult to attain in Florida

@vjbutler Yes, snack sticks keep becoming more and more popular! When you say loosely packed I am assuming that they are in meat bags right? Yes, if you can come up with something that works well please share your experience and process. When you said several hundred I was thinking 3-4 not 1,000 lb! It sounds like you have a plan the only thing I will say again is to try small batches first, though from your previous response I am sure you were planning on this already. If you need some help with the formulation let me know and I can run it past our application specialist to see if he has any input.