An observation about pork versus beef fat in venison sticks today, pork may hold together better, and a question....

[Jonathon]

cdherman Awesome write up very good content for people to see someone else’s experience with other fats since we are always harping on and on about pork fat. When I grind fat, I tend to change what I am doing based mostly on the diameter of the product I am making. Snack sticks I often grind it all together because I don’t necessarily want huge chunks of fat, summer sausage I tend to grind them separately.

salmonmaster Good point on cold to your hand but being way too warm. Sticking a thermometer in your grind is a good way to bring this to light. We should do some social media posts about this.

Dave in AZ as always, good information, I have a ton of brisket fat saved up that I need to do something with. Its been in the freezer a while now though, do you see any degradation over time with frozen brisket fat? I tried not to keep prok fat past 18 months in the freezer but this brisket fat has probably been in the freezer 2 years now. I wasn’t really sure why I was saving it, it just seemed a waste to toss it out!

[processhead]

cdherman FWIW, I used beef fat exclusively in venison snack sticks for the last 10 years with great results. I liked the beef flavor the beef fat added and never had any issues with texture or bind quality.

Our stick recipe did not include any binders or other additives other than what may have been included, but not listed in the seasoning pack.

Unfortunately my source for beef fat is gone now, so this year we will be using pork fat. I have no doubts they will still be good, just a little different.

[bocephus]

cdherman Let us know how the casings adhered to the sticks using air cooling.

[salmonmaster]

processhead we’ve used beef fat for decades in venison for the same reason. Gives the venison a bit of a beef taste, and is WAY easier for us to purchase very cheap. Never a problem with it. Jonathon I’m not sure the frozen beef fat goes bad on a long freeze, but I think you start to taste “age” to it after a year. We’ve used 6 month frozen vac packed pork butts that you could definitely tell had some age to them. Not bad, just old tasting. You could tell it more in fresh sausage, brats, but not so much in snack sticks.

[Dave in AZ]

Jonathon thx for the kind words. I haven’t used fat old enough to tell a flavor difference yet. I know when I’ve thawed an old steak, I can smell a difference on the fat though. So I’ve tried to use it up. Just like you, I couldn’t bear to throw out all that nice brisket fat, but was having a hard time using it. However, I recently tried using it along with pork shoulder in WI style brats, and think it is a good flavor. I have sometimes cut the butt fat cap part off to use for buckboard bacon, so only had 15 to 18% fat left, I’d guess. I’ve added brisket fat to get 28%, last 3 batches, and can’t really tell… just a good juicy flavor.

[cdherman]

Deepwoodsbutcher Got the beef fat from a local grocery store. Its just the trimmings from roasts and steaks that they know people get mad about paying $9 a lb for, so they trim some off. They tell me they throw away most of it, but if you ask ahead, they will keep it for you. They don’t even put it out on display – must be viewed as a turn off for the regular customers. It was certainly not internal fat, as the local store does not slaughter of course.

I will packaged up the sticks tonight and do a more thorough taste and texture text. Will post back how it works out. Especially the caseings. If they separate, I’ll be bummed at my laziness.

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

cdherman even though they do not process whole animals, I’d check out the cuts they have on sale when your are getting your fat. This should tell you where the fat is coming from. For example, Tbones and porterhouse are cut from the shortloin. The kidney fat is pulled from that primal and there is often quite a bit of it left on boxed loins. If the meat cutters don’t seperate that fat out, you might be getting suet mixed in with the rest of the fat. Talk with the cutters to be sure you get the type of fat you are looking for.

[cdherman]

bocephus

Did you already know the outcome, or genuinely wondered?

I really experienced my first venison smoking failure yesterday/today. To heck with the beef versus pork issues.

Errors (in hindsight)

– made about 34 lbs at once, and today upon examination, that just blocked too much smoke and heat movement in my pellet smoker. I got some sticks burned, all the fat cooked out. Others, upon examination were mushy and not to my liking, Probably edible, but no snap to the casing. The temp variation could have also been since it was so dang cold outside. And the wind was blowing. My smoker was showing a lot more temp variation than usual. Note to self, smoking in the wind at 5 F might be a dumb idea.

– used 17mm casings, which I think made things worse. Harder to stuff, needed more water. Then the extra water may have contributed to the to the casings falling off the undercooked areas. Previously I have used 19mm, but once again, local place was out and seems online prices are worse and worse.

– used powdered butter milk instead of suregel binder. To be fair, when I was ordering they were OUT of Suregel binder so I felt the need to try the buttermilk. But the taste and texture are not as good. What a fool making 34 pounds of sticks with a new binder.

– Did not ICE water bath the sticks. Opened up to 5 F air for 45 min and then closed things back up. Probably multiple errors here. I have the feeling water condensed on the sticks today (by the time I got home from work). About 1/2 the casings are slimy and slip off when eating. Yuk…

Now, I’ve been doing this for 3 years now. Probably 250 lbs of sticks in varying formats and I’ve never had anything that everyone didn’t say they liked. So I think I was getting over confident and made too many errors and too many changes to one run.

You live, you learn.

Bocephus has to answer though, did you know I was doomed? I have indeed always iced the sticks, like the instructions say. Till last night… I don’t think you were sure, otherwise you would have told me so… But you were right, somehow any way…

[bocephus]

cdherman I was wondering if it would work, I did not know before hand, or I would have warned you not to do it. I do always ice bath mine but thought maybe it was cold enough where you are at to cool them fast enough by cold air. Sorry things turned out bad for you.

[Dave in AZ]

cdherman bummer, sorry to hear all that. But I do appreciate you posting about it, it will help someone else later, I’m sure.

I can’t recall all details of this thread, so I may be repeating… but, I am absolutely a fan of finishing snack sticks in sous vide, AND NOT on smoker. Particularly if there are cold Weather and smoker temp control issues! Just stick things in smoker a few hours to get smoke flavor, then pull, cut and bag them up ( some folks SV unbagged), they will all get to 160 or whatever in 40 min or so, no fat out, done. Toss bags in ice water. No smoker hot spot or capacity or energy issues.

Here’s a thread of how I do the process, with pics, you may find it useful in the cold weather.
https://meatgistics.waltons.com/topic/5160/meat-sticks-with-sous-vide-finish-in-bags?_=1676687336297

[cdherman]

Dave in AZ said in An observation about pork versus beef fat in venison sticks today, pork may hold together better, and a question....:

cdherman bummer, sorry to hear all that. But I do appreciate you posting about it, it will help someone else later, I’m sure.

I can’t recall all details of this thread, so I may be repeating… but, I am absolutely a fan of finishing snack sticks in sous vide, AND NOT on smoker. Particularly if there are cold Weather and smoker temp control issues! Just stick things in smoker a few hours to get smoke flavor, then pull, cut and bag them up ( some folks SV unbagged), they will all get to 160 or whatever in 40 min or so, no fat out, done. Toss bags in ice water. No smoker hot spot or capacity or energy issues.

Here’s a thread of how I do the process, with pics, you may find it useful in the cold weather.
https://meatgistics.waltons.com/topic/5160/meat-sticks-with-sous-vide-finish-in-bags?_=1676687336297

Very interesting. I have a really nice induction range that has sous vide blue tooth capabilities, but I have not explored. Maybe I should smoke the heck out of the sticks at a low temp – my pellet smoker is really nice at low temps – and then just vacuum pack them up and water bath them to 160 and done…

Thanks all for the input. I basically kill deer because there are too many of them and then I try to process the meat to make as many people understand that venison is edible! When I have a fail, I am wounded. Bit of a perfectionist…