snack sticks
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I have a couple of questions about snack sticks.
I use a sausage stuffer with the small tube and use 17mm or 19 mm collagen casings I also fine chop fresh jalepenos and add to the mix, when I start stuffing the casings it stuffs easy sometimes but then it gets real hard to crank the handle for some reason and if I use too much pressure I have a blowout what am I doing wrong?
And one more question can you leave snack sticks at room temp. -
rodneycaudill
In my experience, anytime you stuff a small casing like 17 or 19 mm, the pressure required to stuff will be very high. If you have other pieces of ingredients, like jalapenos, high temp cheese, etc. they can require even more pressure to get through the stuffing tube, and/or get stuck in the stuffing tube. There is not a lot you can do to make hand crank stuffing easier on small diameter casings like this. One thing to help with 19mm casings would be to use a 12mm stuffing tube as most people use a 10mm stuffing tube. A 12mm will make a big difference from a 10mm.As far as leaving snack sticks at room temp… That will greatly depend on what your process for making them was, what the cook cycle was like, and what the pH and water activity in the final product is. It is very possible to make a snack stick that is shelf stable, but unless you want to buy a pH meter and water activity meter, you will not know 100% for sure if they are totally shelf stable and can be left out for an extended time or not. The typical snack stick should have a good shelf life, but in generic terms, it’s hard to give exact figures without more detail.
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one more question will the high temp cheese fit through the 12mm tube ok?
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rodneycaudill
Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem.
I’ve used the 12mm plenty of times for snack sticks with cheese and never had any problem at all! -
Austin ok guess I need to order some cheese then,
used some carrot fiber and encapsulated citric acid on the last ones they were the best yet. I am still figuring this out but I’m getting there -
rodneycaudill
Yeah, High Temp Cheese really makes sausage so much better!
If you have any other questions along the way, be sure and let us know! -
Just curious, what makes hi temp cheese high temp?
If you used a standard cheese instead would it simply absorb into the meat? -
raider2119
Standard cheese will melt and literally run out of the product while cooking. It will also make the product greasy. Any cheese remaining in the product that doesn’t melt out won’t be visible either.
High Temp cheese is designed to not melt up to 400° F, retains it’s shape, and doesn’t give a greasy texture. It just performs better in a cooked sausage. -
rodneycaudill
We make a lot of sticks and use a hydraulic stuffer, even with that stuffing into 17 or 19mm casings can be hard. We have stepped up to the 22mm collegen smoked casings. It’s so much easier for the cheese to pass through the tube and less stressful on the stuffer and whoever is cranking for you too. I shot my buddy with a cheese chuck that got stuck in the tube of the hydraulic stuffer, he was standing at the end of the table linking…he went down like a soccer player…lot of drama and I hear about it every time we do stick now…
