Snack Stick recipe.

[muxmun]

I would like to make some beef snack sticks but all the recipes I find are for 5, 10 25 pounds of product. I have a small smoker and would like to do around 3 pounds but am not good enough at the math to break those other recipes down. Anyone have a recipe per pound or 1K grams?
I'll be using a carrot binder and some encapsulated citric acid as I understand that this should greatly enhance the final product but what do I know!

Thanks

[bcboy]

I will walk you through the process of making your recipes into smaller batches. Post the recipe or link to the recipe and we will work on it together to make sure you get it.

So if you have a 10lb batch the math would look like this.
10lb x .3 = 3lb. The .3 is 30% that you have to multiple the rest of your ingredients. Unless your ingredients are in percentage form already

25lb x .12 = 3lb. The .12 is 12 % that you have to multiple the rest of your ingredients. Unless your ingredients are in percentage form already.

[muxmun]

BC
Thanks for those calculations. here is what I propose to make using Beef Top round and some Back Fat. The carrot powder binder is 1.5oz per 25 lbs. Here is the recipe.
5 pound recipe. I'll start working on this soon and run it by you.
Thanks...Mux...

5 pounds of burger or venison (85/15) (Venison can also be used, just add 10-15% beef or pork fat to the venison.)
1 tsp. Pink Instacure
3 Tbls. Salt
1-1/2 tsp. Black pepper
1-1/2 tsp. Red Pepper (I used chipotle)
1-1/2 tsp. Garlic salt
2 tsp. Accent (optional)
2 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Cayenne pepper (add more for additional heat)
1/2 tsp. Paprika
2 tsp. Crushed red pepper (I ran thru spice mill just a little to break up seeds)
2 tsp. Hot sauce (I used Franks Xhot)
1/2 cup Water (mix hot sauce into water with sugar and salt)
1 Tbls. Encapsulated citric acid (optional)
Mix hot sauce, sugar, water and salt together.

Mix other dry ingredients well except ECA.

Put wet and dry ingredients on meat and mix well.

Just before stuffing mix in ECA.

Stuff into sheep casings or small stick size casings (17-19mm).

Smoke 1 1/2 – 2 hours at 150-160°F. Then bump temp up to 175°F till internal temperature measures 152°F. Continue until desired dryness or dehydrate further for Slim Jim like dryness. Stop at 152°F internal temperature for fresh snack stick style.

[muxmun]

BC

So to covert from 5lbs to 3lbs I took all measurements x .6. So for instance the salt is 3 TBS x .6 = 1.8TBS
I think that is correct. Now my question is can I take these measurements and convert to grams so I can get it more precise?
Thanks.. Mux

[bcboy]

BC

So to covert from 5lbs to 3lbs I took all measurements x .6. So for instance the salt is 3 TBS x .6 = 1.8TBS
I think that is correct. Now my question is can I take these measurements and convert to grams so I can get it more precise?
Thanks.. Mux

Yes this is correct.

Here are two links for conversion calculator to try. Try them both and see they come up with the same quantity for you.

https://goodcalculators.com/cooking-con ... alculator/

https://www.convertunits.com/from/table ... S]/to/gram

Then you could convert the recipe into percentages to use in metric.

[bcboy]

Here are some links you should use first since the are connected to this site.

https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... calculator

https://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausag ... es/secrets

[redzed]

When I research recipes and come upon one with volume measurements, I don't spend any time reading them and move on.

[muxmun]

Thanks Red
In my search for recipes I only came up with volume quantities. Never having made snack sticks I would be open to yours or anyone's recipe to try out. I appreciate your input. Thankyou

Mux.

[bcboy]

Did you use the posted recipe or did you find a different one?

Here is an old post that I stumbled across.
http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... 3e569b3c0f

[muxmun]

BC
Thanks. I used the recipe posted. The taste and smell was good but the texture was like sawdust. My first time with this. I think it was from the carrot binder that I did not mix correctly. In following up on this I found that perhaps my mixing with respect to the binder was not correct. I will try this again later this week to see if I get different results. Thanks for the links. With my setup its hard to do more than 3 or 5 lbs of whatever I make. Its sometimes difficult to break down anything I make from say 25lbs to a 1 lb and have the final outcome to be very good.
thx...Mux

[Butterbean]

Personally I wouldn't bother using carrot binder. If you find you need a binder for a snack stick it means your process needs improving. Add your salts to the cut up meat and stick it in the fridge for 2-4 days. When you remove it, it should feel like it has a slimy glue on it. Coarse grind the meat with a 1/2" plate then add the remaining spices to it. Mix well and place in the freezer till the top is crusted with ice. Grind this mince through your fine plate. Run your hand through this to mix and feel and if it sticks to your hands like glue stuff - if not repeat the last process again.

[muxmun]

Butterbean.

Thanks. You know more about this kind of stuff than I'll probably ever hope to know. I will give this a try and see how it works out. One thing I found out is it takes a long time on my pellet grill to get these up to temp. next time I will get it to 135 or 140 or so and then sous vide them. Seems like that cuts down the time a lot. And I read also in many places that you should start out at say 120 degrees and slowly bring the temp up. None of the smokers I have seen will start that low. Not sure how anyone does that. Must be some improvising along the way.
Really appreciate your input. Thanks a lot

Mux

[Butterbean]

One thing I found out is it takes a long time on my pellet grill to get these up to temp. next time I will get it to 135 or 140 or so and then sous vide them.

Mux, since you mention time I'd like to offer some food for thought and that is slow smoking is no different than sous vide where time plays a function in the equation as does temperature so if your sticks reach 140F and stay there for about 30 minutes the food is safe to eat just like you do with sous vide so apply your sous vide knowledge to this and I think you'll be happy with the outcome. I guess what I'm saying is that if a pathogen is dead after 30 minutes at 140F its not more dead at 160F if you get my drift.

[muxmun]

Butterbean

Good point. I guess I had never thought of it that way. Thanks.