Hickory Farms Beef Stick
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A friend and I were talking about things we used to enjoy, and the topic of Hickory Farms came up. Remember those two foot long, three inch beef sticks they used to sell around the holidays? It seems that HF has changed their recipe, and they no longer make or sell the old version anymore. Out of curiosity, I searched the net high and low for a copycat version, with no luck. None of the available spice blends or my own summer sausage recipe don’t taste like we remember. Has anyone run across anything or have a version that is similar to the old Hickory Farms Beef Stick?
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Mean Dean I’m not sure how well I remember the flavor of them but I DO remember them and I think I remember them being close to a pepperoni flavor? I could be wrong on that, as a child I was obsessed with pepperoni, any event like Christmas, Birthdays or anything that is what I wanted to have. However, I am also seeing it in my mind and thinking it was pretty wrinkled which could mean it was a dry-cured product.
I looked through a few books here for a copy cat recipe for HK sticks and didn’t find anything, sorry!
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Jonathon - Thanks for looking. It wasn’t a dry cured product, not wrinkly either. Actually pretty soft, more like a summer sausage. It needed to be refrigerated. It was a smokey, mild tasting sausage. Sometimes we miss those days of old… Thanks again.
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Mean Dean I made some H Summer Sticks recently and they were really good, but they didn’t remind me of anything really. I am also clearly thinking of a different product than you are though…my memory is bad but it isn’t that bad to misremember something that drastically…actually yes it 100% is.
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Hahaha - that happens to me too! From what I can recall, the Hickory Farms Beef Stick was about 3” in diameter. It had a smokey and mild flavor, which was primarily beef forward. I’m sure there were other spices in it, but none were pronounced, as in salt, garlic, peppery, etc. No mustard seed either, as in their current offering. There is nothing special about their current offering, and for my taste, it isn’t really that good. No where near the original. I suppose I could start experimenting, but not really certain what I can use to get more of a beefy taste from it.
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glen Regular Contributors Team Grey Sous Vide Canning Dry Cured Sausage Masterbuilt Power User Meat Hack Winner Veteran Kansasreplied to Mean Dean on last edited by
Mean Dean Don’t have a Hickory Farms copycat but for an extra beefy flavor replace a portion of your salt with Beef Bouillon or with a product named Better Than Bouillon
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Hickory Farms used to use glucono-delta-lactone to acidulate the sausage in place of fermentation or the more modern encapsulated citric & lactic acids. It hydrolyzes to gluconic acid to increase the acid level and drop the pH. That is the same acid as what is in honey and would have a different flavor than lactic or citric acid. Maybe that is the difference in flavor that you remember. Not many people work with it any more with all the newer encapsulated acids,
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bocephus Team Orange Power User Canning Masterbuilt Regular Contributors Veteran New Mexico Sous Vide Gardeningreplied to Jonathon last edited by
Jonathon Wait, when you were kid you were obsessed with pepperoni???
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Denny O Iowa Team Camo Weber Grills Canning Gardening Cast Iron Regular Contributors Power User Green Mountain Grill Sous Videreplied to bocephus last edited by
bocephus Why can’t I hit the “Like” button and make it count more than once??!!
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Denny O Iowa Team Camo Weber Grills Canning Gardening Cast Iron Regular Contributors Power User Green Mountain Grill Sous Videreplied to TimC 0 last edited by
TimC 0 I have no idea what was in them, but.
We had them at christmas before any of us made Sumer sausages. For me I liked them at the time but disliked them @ the same time WHICH got me into making my own.Reason was they were too greasy!
Blah!
That was what was left in my mouth with a strong smokey taste in my mouth.@ the time I had nothing to compare it to and they were great, buttt, then later, NOPE!
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I toured the Mason City, Iowa plant that was making them back in the 1980’s and it was hard for them not to smear the fat when manufacturing on an industrial scale. Plus I think you only have 4-6 hrs before the GDL starts to hydrolyze to gluconic acid and they would quickly get greasy and soft if you exceeded the time limit.
