Snack sticks ECA Help

[Donovan Mercer]

I’m making snack sticks this weekend along with some whole muscle jerky. I had a question with puting the ECA in with the snack sticks. Can I put the seasoning, cure, carrot binder, and water in with my ground venison/pork, mix for proper protien extraction, then let it sit overnight in a bowl. Then the following morning can I add in the ECA, hightemp cheese then immediately stuff in 19mm casing and smoke?

[Jonathon]

Donovan Mercer You run the risk of the meat starting to set up overnight because you have already added salt and started mixing it, that is going to begin to solubilized and extract the protein from the meat which will make it sticky and eventually it will start to form hard bonds with eachother.

Why are you planning this, is it because the stuffer won’t be available till the next day or is it that you won’t have time to smoke it until the next day?

If it is that the stuffer wont be available then your best bet is to grind it but don’t add anything until the next day, then mix and stuff. If that isn’t possible you will PROBABLY be okay adding except the Encapuslated Citric Acid then the next day adding more water and the ECA during the last 60 seconds. Your main issue here is that if the meat sets up too much you are going to have to mix so hard that you will rupture the Encapsulated Citric Acid.

So, if the issue is you can’t smoke till the next day I really think you would probably be better adding the ECA, stuffing it and then letting that sit overnight. It’s not ideal as if the Encapsulation on the Citric Acid ruptures it is possible that it will denature the proteins and then work on it all night.

Either way, your BEST bet is to wait but if that isn’t possible I would go with option 2 and stuff the first day.

I will try to do some testing on this with a few batches and let everyone know which was better.

FYI and unrelated, the issue with the “Post Quick Reply” button is that if something goes wrong you lose everything, this is the second time I wrote almost all of that this morning, I was just typing my last sentence when I hit f12 or something and the screen went totally blank!

[Donovan Mercer]

Jonathon I won’t be able to smoke it until Sunday. I was just figuring it’d be easier to have the meat ready to stuff and smoke earlier on sunday if I only had to mix in the ECA. I was also wanting the meat to be able to marinate with the flavors before cooking them. That may not make as big of a difference as I was thinking, so I should be able to just mix, stuff, and smoke all sunday, morning. Thanks for the help!

[Jonathon]

Donovan Mercer Yup, that’s the best plan if you can manage it! Hope it goes well and enjoy!

[Donovan Mercer]

Jonathon one more quick question if you have time! The 19mm Smoke Collagen Casings come in a pack of 3, it says they hold 9.2 lbs each do you know approximately how many feet/inches each one is?

[Donovan Mercer]

Donovan Mercer I’m so sorry I did some more searching and found out it says they are 50ft each sorry to bother you!

[PapaSop]

Donovan Mercer
Don’t ever worry about bothering someone around here. Kinda what this whole community is all about. Good luck on those sticks.

[Jonathon]

Donovan Mercer Glad you found the answer, sorry, I just didn’t see this, we ended the day on Friday with a podcast (should be releasing 1st soon) and I took the day totally off yesterday and went sporting clay shooting with my new American tactical over under 12 gauge…last time I went I shot just under 70, this time…not even as good as that. Gonna take some practice with this overunder!