Ok, after apparently screwing up the measurements on the spices for my first batch of snack sticks, I figured I would go with a pre-packaged mix for round 2. Went to the local Gander Mountain retail store and picked up a 20lb kit of Hi-Mountain's original flavor snack sticks. Then went across the road to Sam's Club and picked up about 9 pounds of 80% lean ground beef that was ground just minutes before I walked in (I mean minutes. They were taking it out of the lug and packaging it up as I watched). I needed 5 pounds and the packages were all 4.5 pounds or less, so I had to get two.
Measured the meat to within .2 ounces precision for exactly 5 pounds.
Mixed the spice and cure using some Bud Black Crown instead of water. The spice & cure both came in 4 sealed packages. Two packages of each, the cure and the spice, so if the kit makes 20 pounds of snack sticks, 1 package of each makes 10 pounds. I needed to use 1/2 of a sealed packet of both of them for 5 pounds. Instructions said to use "up to 1/4 cup of ice cold water per pound" so I used 1 cup of the ice cold beer to mix the cure and spice before adding it to the meat.
To avoid any measurement issues, I went metric grams instead of the teaspoon/tablespoon volumes. Dumped one of the cure packets into a small bowl that I had zeroed out on my digital scale (.01 gm precision model). Total in the packet was 121 grams so I measured out 60.5 grams and put the other 60.5 grams back into the zip lock bag it came from. Did the same for the spice mix. Total in the packet was 99.5 grams so I used 49.75 grams and kept the other half for the next batch.
Mixed by hand until nice and tacky and no evidence of pink unmixed meat could be seen. Then into the Kitchener 5lb stuffer. Odd think was my precisely measured 5 pounds of ground beef did not exactly fit in the 5 pounds stuffer. Had about a small hand full that had to be added after I made some room. Go figure.
Used one of the four tubes of 22mm casings that came in the kit (or is it 20mm? I forget). The 22mm worked much better than the 17mm casings I used on my first batch (it was what I had). Used the LEM 3/8" stainless tube for the stuffing and one entire tube just did fit that stuffer tube. Ended up with two sets of "rounds" that are now resting in the fridge.
Fried up the dregs from the cleanup of the stuffer. Has a pretty good flavor, but is a little salty. Not sure if this will mellow as it rests or not, but I measured about as precisely as was possible and it's a prepackaged mix.
I'm going to let them sit overnight in the fridge to let the flavors blend. Will take them out and let the come up to room temp for about a hour tomorrow. I plan on using my AMZNPS pellet tray to smoke them using some of Todd's pitmaster blend for a couple of hours tomorrow. Since I have two rounds, I'll probably just set them on the two racks of the 18.5" WSM and use it for the cold smoke chamber.
Then plan "A" is to toss a 1,500 watt element into the bottom of the WSM after smoking to bring the temp up and cook them to 152*. I tried to use that element and small cast pot as a heating element & smoke generator in the WSM a while back. The element still has the thermal limiter inside and with the small pot on the element inside the WSM it kept shutting down and not really making smoke. My recollection is it did heat the interior of the WSM and the jerky I was doing at the time just fine. So I'm going to try that element with nothing on top of it.
Plan "B" (which was originally plan "A") is use the LEM 10 tray dehydrator. But I wanted some smoke first. I may still finish them in the dehydrator. Guess I will flip a coin tomorrow and see how it goes. So this is sort of a maybe "dehydrator" post.
Stuffed them pretty tight, but no blowouts. Each is approximately 2.5 pounds. Only photo was of the stuffed sticks/rounds. I'll post more tomorrow.
