How to make Snacksticks

hey guys this is john from waltons and this is how to make snack sticks [Music] now snack sticks are just a cured sausage that are stuffed into a smaller diameter collagen casing this is smoked collagen is definitely the most commonly used for snack sticks snack sticks are cured so you're going to use sure cure in it this is going to preserve the flavor of the meat and keep it safe during the smoking process when we're smoking a cured sausage we are creating the perfect environment for all sorts of nasty little bacteria microorganisms the sure cure is going to help make sure that your meat is safe throughout the entire process now the first thing that we're going to talk about is meat selection now snack sticks can be made from basically any protein we've made them from pheasant obviously we make them a lot from pork beef venison all sorts of wild game the important thing is your fat selection you want to choose pork fat this is for a couple of reasons number one pork fat has a really nice bright white color to it two it has very little taste on its own and most importantly it's got a creaminess that is basically unmatched in any other fat even if you're making an all beef snack stick if you want the best possible result i would highly recommend that you add some pork fat to it generally we want to be somewhere in the 75 percent protein to 25 fat ratio we can go a little bit above that but if we go any above 70 30 any extra fat we add at that point is going to cook out of the sausage and create a mess on your floor if we go below 20 fat we're gonna end up with a dryer stick that isn't gonna have that much taste this is because as you're chewing the fat it's gonna melt melt encapsulate your mouth and it lets you experience the flavors longer now for snack stick seasonings we've got a huge array of them everything from our best-selling willys up to the sweet ginger thai those two seasons couldn't be further apart on taste but they both make a really great snack stick after you've chosen your seasoning you're going to want to think about additives obviously you're going to add the sugar cure this is what's going to give it its curing power but a lot of people also do like to add cheese which cheese you use is going to be dictated in some part by what seasoning you're going to use not going to want to use cheddar cheese if you're making a dill pickle snack stick those two flavors just don't go together so put some thought into that we always recommend people use sure gel sure gel is a binder that is going to help keep everything where it should we always say that it just increases your margin of error so if you don't get the best bond while you're mixing that sure gel is going to help make sure everything stays where it should during the smoking process then we want to talk about cure accelerators there's two of them that we recommend pretty often one of them is encapsulated citric acid now encapsulated citric acid is going to lower the ph of your meat making it a more acidic environment this does help preserve the meat especially early on but it also adds a tang to the sausage that some people just don't like if you're one of those people another additive you can use is sodium aerothorbate sodium erythurbate is going to accelerate the cure so that it's working quicker within the meat the downside to sodium erathorbe is its potency 7 8 of an ounce of this material is enough to accelerate the cure to a hundred pounds of meat so you need to be very careful when you're measuring it out we like to tell people that the ascali precision scale is a must have if you're going to be using sodium erathorbate in smaller than hundred pound batches the first step is going to be cut up whatever protein you're using whether it be pork beef wild game into pieces small enough to fit down the throat of your grinder depending on what type of grinder you're using you may want to get a nice freeze on that meat first if you're using a traditional grinding head like this one we would recommend that you cut it into cubes put it in your freezer and basically to the point where it's just short of crunchy on the outside you want it to have some good resistance as you're squeezing this is going to do a few things one it's going to speed the grinding process up immensely that first and more importantly second grind will go by much faster if your meat is almost frozen solid second it's going to keep your meat safer when we're talking about snack sticks anything like this like i said earlier we are creating the perfect environment for all sorts of nasty little bacteria so sanitation and keeping your meat cold are really important now if you're using something like our walton's one shot grinder head you can take meat right out of the fridge this doesn't need to be frozen at all what this does is grinds meat twice in a single pass so it's got the standard auger system but then it has a large kidney plate on the inside followed by a two-sided knife that says sharpened edges on both sides and finally you can put whatever plate you want on the outside you can use a 1 8 a 3 16 so 3 8 it doesn't matter for a cured sausage we're going to use a 1 8 plate this means that we're going to go from whole chunk meat into a finished product that is fine enough to go right to our mixer in one pass this saves a lot of time for those of you who have done lots of cured sausage processing that second grind takes a long time and remember all the time that meat is out of the cooler it's time that we could be introducing any type of bacteria to it so this gives you a nice beautiful clean grind and gets it done really fast now when we're mixing the first thing we're going to want to add to our mixer is our meat then we're going to add our seasoning and any additives aside from encapsulated citric acid encapsulated citric acid needs to go in during the last 60 seconds of the mixing process add your water add your cheese and begin mixing we want to mix here until we get something called protein extraction this is going to be when your meat is nice and sticky if you pick up a handful of it and pull the meat apart the meat is going to stretch with you another way to check it is grab a handful of it and hold your hand palm side down the meat should stick to your hand this is going to make sure that your fat stays inside the sausage during the smoking process as we're smoking it we're going to hit temperatures that are going to render the fat if it's encapsulated in the rest of the meat it can melt but it's going to have nowhere to run to it will just reform right inside the sausage adding sure gel absolutely can help here during the last 60 seconds add your encapsulated citric acid if you add it too early you run the risk of breaking that encapsulation and introducing the acid too early in the process this is going to denature your proteins and can give you a dry and crumbly sausage or your proteins may just completely refuse to bind now when you're loading your canister for stuffing we want to get as little air in there as possible if you load your meat at a 45 degree angle and just change that every time you add more meat you're going to end up with less air in there you should also be punching down at the meat this will also help get any air out of it now if you're using a 19 millimeter collagen casing which is what we recommend you should use a 12 millimeter stuffing tube that's the largest tube that that casing will slide easily over as you're stuffing down if you're using a hand crank stuffer you'll want to have something to anchor the stuffer down to prevent it from rocking the walton's suction cup feet are great for this if not just a basic wood clamp to the edge of your table stuff until the casing is full and smooth you want to be able to just faintly see a swirl pattern running down the outside of the casing if you see any crinkles in the casing or you can easily see that pattern it is probably under stuffed if the casing looks completely smooth and plump then it's overstuffed the danger of that is when you go to hang your casing it can rupture during the cooking process dropping everything on the floor so it just takes a little bit of practice to get good at what the correct level of firmness is now when you go to add your meat to the smoker you have to think about a couple of things if you added a cure accelerator we're going directly from stuffing right to smoking if we didn't add a cure accelerator we need to hold that meat after stuffing for 12 hours before we put it in the smoker now those two meats are going to act very differently initially in any smoker if we're going right in from stuffing our meat's going to be a little bit warmer than it is if it's coming out of a cooler it's also going to have a different amount of moisture on the surface so if you've held it overnight in a cooler allow your drying phase to go for 15 to 20 minutes longer than if you added a cure accelerator and are going right into your smoker either way you did it your first phase should be 120 degrees for either an hour or an hour and 20 minutes with no humidity your dampers wide open and a fan blowing if you can there's no reason to add smoke during this process either after that first period close your dampers three quarters of the way down and kick the temperature up to 130 or 140 degrees let it cook at that for an hour then kick it up to 150 degrees at this point we definitely want to add smoke and we want to add humidity now not every smoker has the ability to add humidity a great way to get a good product at home is to get a large oversized water pan and get yourself just some basic automotive sponges get these completely wet and then stand them up in the smoker all of this including in these little caverns and tunnels this is all surface area that water can be evaporated up off of now why are we doing this there's something called the stall with meat that's when the moisture starts cooking out of the meat and gets it to the surface now just like when you sweat once that moisture reaches the surface of the sausage it's going to make it harder for thermal processing energy to penetrate it this is because as it evaporates off it's cooling the outside of that sausage same as your skin if we have high humidity already in the smoker it's going to be a lot harder for that moisture on the surface to evaporate off that's going to get us right through the stall and it's going to give us a better juicier finished product then you're going to want to go up to 160 degrees cook it there for an hour and finally go up to 175 degrees and cook it until the internal temperature of your meat is either 160 degrees for things like beef and pork or 165 for any poultry and wild game we're going to want to use either an ice bath or a shower cycle now when we say ice bath i mean ice bath 50 ice 50 water if we try to just do a cold water bath we're going to have casings that start separating from the meat this is because we need to stop the cooking process as quickly as possible otherwise this can dwell for another three or four degrees now for snack sticks we don't necessarily recommend this but you can pull your meat once it's hit 130 degrees internal temperature and finish it up in a sous-vide cooker sous-vide cooker is just something that heats water to a very specific degree snack sticks are generally thin enough that they don't require it but if you're running into an incredibly long stall or if you're on a real time budget that can be an option to use take them out of the smoker and let them sit at room temperature for at least an hour and a half two hours is probably better this is called blooming and this is we're gonna see really nice color development if you can see on these we let these sit for two hours and they are beautiful dark red just absolutely gorgeous looking then transfer them to your cooler overnight come in the next day let them sit out at room temperature again for at least an hour before vacuum packing them if you try to vacuum pack them too early we're going to run into a problem we're going to get moisture in the bag and that is going to ruin the longevity of our product now if this is your first time making snack sticks you should end up with something that's firm yet fairly pliable with a nice snap to it now some people like a wrinkled casing if that's a look you're going for there are a couple things you can do one you can add a higher fat content that way when the fat renders out of the product you'll have a little bit of extra room and cavities to for that casing to suck to you can also add a little bit more water than you normally would and you can slightly understuff your casing in general though this is what we want to look for a nice smooth casing with a good pop to it and a great taste now one question we get a lot is what are these little pink spots on the end of your snack stick it's nothing to be alarmed about this is actually just casing bleed it's what colors the casing does run down into the meat a little bit on the edges it's perfectly cooked as long as you made sure that it cooked up to 160 or 165 these snack sticks should keep for a really long time in the freezer you'll have them for years to come now if you're looking for more information on this head on over to meat just sticks university where we broke down cured sausage into an entire class we've got the 1os the 2os and even some of the 3os available over there to give you more information as always remember to like comment and subscribe and visit waltons.com and meet gistics.com to find everything about the meat thanks for watching i'm john with waltons and i'll see you guys next time subscribe to walton's youtube channel to check out more meat processing videos shop waltons.com to find everything but the meat or check out more hand-picked videos by clicking here or clicking here

Channel: Walton's

Views: 63,148

Keywords: Waltonsinc.com, WaltonsTV

Id: zEHzcm9UZs0

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 29 2022