Substituting bacon for fat
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FarmerRon The first question would be is this something you are planning on selling commercially? If not then no, you do not need to adjust anything. The ingoing parts per million of bacon are 120 ppm for injected and 200 ppm for dry rubbed. The main reason for this is that the only confirmed way in which Cure becomes a carcinogen is when it is burnt, which sometimes happens with Bacon in the pan. Those PPMs keep it below a level that would cause an issue if burnt and they shouldn’t affect your snack stick.
If you are going to be selling this to any customers then there might be some calculations (and special labelling) that you will have to do.
Let me know!
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FarmerRon I prefer pork fat 99% of the time. In my opinion, the flavor that the bacon gives you is strong enough that it throws off the taste of whatever you are making. The exception to this would be if you were making something like a Sweet Maple Bacon Snack Stick. Now, it absolutely can be done and is done with some frequency but all things being equal I prefer regular pork fat.
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Ive been wrong many times before lol! But i dont feel like it would turn out super good unless you found a seasoning mix that would blend well with the bacon taste which might take some nasty sticks to figure it out. Possibly willies snack stick from waltons might be ok… if you do this please let us know how it turns out. Commercially seems like a bit of a bad thing, the cost of bacon/pork fat is huge. Profit margin would be horrid!
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I did try bacon but not with snack sticks. I added a pound of bacon in a 80/20 venison to pork jalapeno summer sausage mix. I put the bacon in the freezer for awhile so it would grind easier. This was just a small test batch. It didn’t have much of a bacon flavor to it and actually took away from the jalapeno flavor. Have not used bacon since. Also think the extra cost of the bacon isn’t worth it.
