Another version of Ham Snack sticks

[Sailor1]

Every since Cliff started to make his Ham Sticks my mouth has been watering.  I remembered that a few years ago I copied down a Ham Stick recipe from another site that I wanted to make but never did and I completely forgot all about it.  I went digging through my recipes and found it and going to make it this weekend.

I started off with a bone in butt and deboned it and sliced it up into 3/4 x 1 inch strips.  I mixed up 2/3 cup of Morton's Tender Quick and 1 cup dark brown sugar and mixed the cure and sugar together.  Then mixed the cure/sugar into the meat strips and put the lid back on and going to let it rest in the fridge overnight. 

Meat all sliced up in my bowl.


Tender Quick/sugar mixed up.  Still have a few lumps of brown sugar as I had it vac sealed.  Not a problem as they dissolved when mixing in the meat.


Dumped the cure/sugar mix on top of the meat strips


Hand mixed the cure/sugar in with the meat and the liquid from the meat really started to juice up which melted all of the brown sugar.


Before I go to bed tonight I will give the meat mix another good hand mixing and put the lid back on and let rest overnight in the fridge.  Will keep you all posted on the next steps.

I am thinking of splitting the mix in 1/2 and making 1/2 sticks and the other 1/2 into chubs but may change my mind. 

[smokendevo]

So many options ah sailor, I am sure what ever you produce will be mouth watering as always.

[TentHunteR]

This is similar to the approach I took last time I made the sticks. I bet they're gonna be good!

[CDN Smoker]

Keeping a close eye on this one 

[ACW3]

Keeping a close eye on this one 

Me, too!

Art

[Tenpoint5]

Jim is this a variance of Curt's Ham sticks?

[Sailor1]

Jim is this a variance of Curt's Ham sticks?

That be the one that I am making.  Not sure if I will use Honey or Maple syrup.  I think you have made it before if I remember right.  I think Curt said he was going to add pepper to his next batch but never heard a follow up on it so I may add some black pepper to 1/2 of it.

[sparky]

I really don't care how you make mine.  still have address right?  these are going to be good.   

[Sailor1]

This morning I hand rinsed each strip of sliced Butt and drained then put back in the bowl and filled it with water and swooshed it around a bit.  Then put in stainer and put in the mixing tub and back into the fridge for a few hours to drain.

I then ground the meat using a fine plate.  I don't think I let it drain long enough as the grind was pretty wet.  Then I mixed 1/2 cup of Honey and 1 cup of water together and mixed that in with the ground meat.  It was really a wet mix.  Should have only used 1/2 cup of water to start with.  I am putting the mix back into the fridge and see if I can evaporate some of the water off it.  I think it is just too wet to stuff and I will squeeze a lot of water out stuffing.  At any rate I fried up a small patty and it tasted like Honey Ham with a very nice pronounced Honey taste.  Gave a piece to the wife and she said what is this going to be.  I said Ham Sticks.  She said it does not taste like your other snack sticks!  She said it taste like ham that has Honey in it.     Bingo I says!    

So that is the recipe that I copied from Curt's post several years ago.  Sliced the meat per his post and mixed the MTQ/Brown sugar per his post.  Then rinsed twice and drained (I don't think I did a good job on the draining).  Then 1 cup of water with 1/2 cup of Honey.

Rinsed and draining


All mixed up and it is pretty damp.

[Sailor1]

I just got off the phone with Chris.  I woke him up!    Yikes, sure sorry about that.  I forgot he works the night shift and I figured everyone would be up by Noon EST.  I asked him about the mix being pretty wet and he said when he made it his was wet too and he said they turn out great.  So I guess I will pull the stuffer out and get to stuffing and see what we get. 

[spuds]

Nice write up.

[Sailor1]

I let the mix sit in the fridge for 1 hr and the meat stiffened up quite a bit.  I stuffed 18mm collagen casings and then used 2 1/2 inch fibrous casings to finish off what was left.  They stuff great so all of my worrying about being too wet was all for naught.  Hung the 2 chubs to the rear of the Bradley and the sticks to the front.  Drying at 130 now for 1 hr then up to 140 for some Hickory smoke.  Will bump 10 degrees every 2 hours to a max of 170 and pull at IT of 152.

All stuffed up.


Hanging in the smoker


Peek-a-Boo of one of the chubs in the back

[sliding_billy]

Those look great.

[HighOnSmoke]

Keeping a close eye on this one 

Me, too!

Art

Me Three! And those look totally awesome! Wish I had some!

[Sailor1]

The sticks were finished about 2 hours before the chubs and the sticks went right into the fridge overnight.  The chubs went into a cold water bath to bring the temp down and then placed on a rack for 2 hrs to bloom then into the fridge overnight.

Hog Dang!  These are good.  I am more impressed with the chubs than with the sticks.  While the sticks are good I think you can do more with the chubs.  If you like Honey Ham you will love these.  The sliced up chub will make a great ham sammy, or diced up with eggs or sliced on a egg and muffin or heck just about anything you would do with ham.  Wife gave me 2 thumbs up and I will be making chubs again.

Chubs just out of the cold water bath.


This morning took a chub out and sliced off the end.  Very good!


Not sure why it took me 2 years to get around to making this. 

Thanks for looking.