First time snack sticks and thermo processing

smokinbubba

Sous vide = going to bed at a decent hour.

taufrecht

The water is working.
Before I but water in the smoker I had icicles from the smoker to the concrete. -8 degrees brings its own challenges

processhead

Modern smokers have a lot of controls and temp sensors which we have come to be very dependent on.
It is good to have an accurate backup thermometer that you can trust when things just don’t seem right.

taufrecht

Agreed I have a Meatometer I bought at Waltons. I wish I bought the 4 pack instead of just the single. Love love it

GWG8541

smokinbubba My first run of snack sticks with the sous vide was today.

YooperDog

GWG8541 looking good. I use a turkey roaster right now, but will be going that route hopefully soon. It is like going going from bottling to kegging.

taufrecht

You don’t have to put them in a bag when submersing in the water. Those look so much better than mine. We made 275 lbs of sausage including 50lbs of Willies snack sticks today. I smoked 50 lbs of habanero mango brats. The best of the best.

processhead

I like my finished snack sticks somewhat dry and I am wondering about if that is even possible when finishing sticks in hot water? The only thing I can think of is letting them air dry in the refrigerator after all thermal processing is done, before packaging.

YooperDog

processhead I let mine air dry in the fridge and they get like a salami and a solid snap. Kabanosy makes a good stick, growing up the local shops would have them hanging on the rack with their other cured sausages in varying stages of dryness. Probably wouldn’t float today.

s.a.m

YooperDog I do the same thing, I’ll let them in the fridge uncovered a couple days, do the same with my whole muscle jerky

Jonathon

taufrecht 30 hours for snack sticks is way too long so there are a few things that could be going on here. (sorry, I know we’ve kind of moved on but I wanted to point this out)
You might have gotten case hardening, where the outside of the casing either cooks or dries too quickly. At -8 I hope you warmed up your smoker first and then tried to keep the doors open for short periods while you loaded it? Adding humidity is a good way to increase the thermal processing energy as it fights off the stall and helps convey the heat more effectively into the meat.
Last thing, it COULD be an issue with your PK-100. I remember someone else saying something similar recently. I hope they don’t have a bad batch of controllers or something out there. Using a thermometer that can check the ambient temperature in the smoker is probably idea.

And, of course, finishing in water speeds everything up!

smokinbubba

processhead i bloom mine with a fan blowing on them. Works good.

twilliams

smokinbubba the term “bloom” i dont quite understand, the look of my snack stix, summer sausage and ring bologna has the same look from finished out of smoker to 20 minute ice bath to 1 hour set dry time and after overnight in fridge before packaging. So not really sure on the term or what it is supposed to do

smokinbubba

Bloom is basically a resting period after the ice bath. Some smoked products will develop a nice mahogany color. It also dries a little. It really helps my sticks that were finished in sous vide. Didnt see much color change in thise tho.

taufrecht

I used the MEATER thermometer. The internal ambient temperature never got close to the setting of the PK100. I even set it up to 250 degrees at high watt setting. The temperature never got above 150.
What would be my next step?

twilliams

taufrecht call customer service at proSmoker

processhead

Could be several things causing that.

Bad temperature probe telling the controls that it is hotter than it actually is, so the controller doesn’t call for the element to turn on.
Bad control board.
Bad or intermittent wire connection between control board and the element.
Bad heating element. Usually when they go bad, you will get zero heat .
Depending on your skills and comfort troubleshooting electrical power equipment, you may want to have a technician look at it for you.

twilliams

processhead i assume it is under warranty, if that is the case only a certified technician can dive into it.

taufrecht

I read that on the directions
I bought it from Walton’s last month.
Sure hope they will stand behind the warranty

processhead

Yes, if its under warranty, exhaust all those options first.