How To Make Homemade Snack Sticks
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Not using ECA. Appreciate your response. Yeah, I’m just holding them for a convenient time to start. But, I wondered if that might cause an an issue, etc.
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Lost River Jones I only have had one really good batch but that is because I am learning. I got great protein extraction but it took long because I mixed by hand. The next morning added the ECA and they came out pretty good. Getting ready for my next bat h because my boys are eating them all.
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Lost River Jones 24 hours is fine, that is not going to harm anything. Too much longer might cause and issue, 12 is the least amount of time but 24 is fine as well.
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Jonathon Thanks for the advice!
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Ode -Tom The 5 series Pitboss at Lowes is $400 and will smoke 20 16oz summer sausage hanging from one rack at the top with s-hooks. Best deal on a smoker you will find anywhere!..It is a verticle smoker with a glass front door and 3 yr waranty!!! My Traeger buddies are JEALOUS!!!
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So I did my first batch of snack sticks today. I have a Bradley smoker and I used waltons willies snack sticks. I followed the directions on how to smoke and everything. So I put 10 pounds of snack sticks inside the smoker. This ended up taking 16 hours to reach an internal temp of 152. I didn’t use any gel binder or anything (because I’m new and not sure if I need them yet. Hoping someone could tell me.) not only did it take 16 hours. They shriveled up and don’t look appealing. I also used the smoked collagen casings 19mm. Love the size. But now the casing taste awful which I think might be from being on the smoker for so long. Please help. Want to successfully make snack sticks but really struggling. Also I feel that 16 hours was way to long. When I need to get the rest of the 25 pound batch done. Please tell me what I’m doing wrong.
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Blaker25 I would definitely recommend using Sure Gel as it is going to help make a better product, it’s not mandatory but highly recommended. Did you have any humidity in there, a bowl of water or something to introduce humidity? If not I would definitely try that next time and make sure you don’t overload the smoker with too much as it can impede air flow. The first time I made Summer Sausage it took forever because I didn’t have any humidity and I kept opening the smoker to check the temp not thinking that every time I did that I was letting all the heat out so if you don’t have a wireless thermometer I suggest getting one. You didn’t mention if you held the sticks overnight after stuffing or if you went straight to the smoker but if you are not using a cure accelerator you need to hold them overnight. That won’t effect the cook time but just wanted to point that out.
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AdamCA yes I held them overnight because of the cure. So you would use the sure gel or a binder. Do either of them effect the taste. Also. What’s your dampener set at on the smoker?
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Blaker25 Sure gel is a binder and yes I use it when making any cured and smoked sausage or snack sticks. I start off with my dampers wide open for the first 30-60 minutes then I close it down to about half to a little more for the remainder of the cook. The last time I did sticks they were done in about 2.5 hours.
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AdamCA what’s your smoking procedure for smoking snack sticks
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JerkyIsMySalad 80/20 as long as the 20 is pork fat will be fine, 70/30-80/20 is preference more than anything. I’d recommend that you mix it into your meat and then add the water as you are mixing for a cured product. Not sure if that was you but someone asked this same question during the live stream we just did. You can go to waltonsinc.com/live or our youtube page to watch it.
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Joe Hell , PapaSop, Jonathon or Austin, I have a question that I hope could get answered before this evening as I am going to make a batch of snack sticks. I have a 30" smoke hollow smoker with 3 racks. If I were to lay the meat sticks on the the racks, should I be rotating the racks? the heat source is on the bottom and I’m afraid that they will be at different temp levels when I finish. My previous batches I have hung from the top rack but it was more work to hang them so I want to try this method. Also, at which stage do you add water for humidity? Thanks in advance
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JerkyIsMySalad I would say yes you should rotate them for 2 reasons. 1 as you say you will have possibly hotter racks at the bottom and cooler on top but also you might end up with sticks with indentation lines in them so rotate them from top to bottom in the smoker but also rotate them on the rack. Now, someone just commented the other day that they did not rotate theirs and they did not get lines or anything in their sticks, I still would. I would recommend adding smoke and humidity after the initial drying stage which with sticks shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes.
Good luck!
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Jonathon Thanks for the advice! I will plan accordingly!
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JerkyIsMySalad
As Jonathon said. Started hanging them last couple batches with no problem though. Weird. -
So I’m doing my snack stick overflow in the oven and the bottom of the sticks are covered in grease. Does this mean that they’re getting out? Temp hasn’t gotten over 140 yet
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Do you have a suggested thermal process for snack sticks that are not getting put into a casing? Is it different than the process with casings? I hope it is because if I follow the process above they are way to dry and harder than I would like, I have been experimenting with different temps and cook times and am struggling to get the results I want. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Venison with 10 percent pork fat. Next batch with be 20 percent.
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Barry1967 Why aren’t you putting them in casings? Your fat content looks to low as well 20 will be an improvement, 30 would be better.
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