I’ve made about 350 pounds of beef snack sticks within the last couple weeks. The sticks turned out pretty good but I feel that there’s always room for improvement. The snap, smoke, and flavor is good. The thing I’m trying to nail down is the texture. Any master beef stick makers on here have any advice for improving the texture? I’m wondering about the grind size and length of mixing time? Do I need more protein extraction? Would the texture be better with a higher fat to lean ratio? 80/20 compared to 70/30? Also is there any go to additives that would help with the texture? I’m wondering if the amount of water added has a significant effect on the texture as well? A lot to think about here but any help is appreciated!

I work for a new meat processing facility that recently just bought a Mauting Smokehouse. When we got it installed we only got a few smoke cycles programmed into it. I was wondering if anyone else on here has a Mauting Smokehouse and wouldn’t mind helping me out with some more smoke cycles. Im mainly looking for some cured pork loin cycles as well as a pulled pork cycle. Any help or direction on where to find more cycles would be greatly appreciated.

So I am wondering what the preferred method is for grinding beef and pork trim into ground product. I recently just got a new mixer/grinder and I am looking into all the different sizes of plates and knives that I can buy for it, such as 1/4", 1/8", 3/16". As far as methods go, does everyone prefer switching plates for a course and fine grind? Just course grinding twice? Any other methods that anyone prefers? I will be mixing in seasonings for pork sausage, snack sticks, summer sausages, and other further processed products like that into the mixer/grinder. Just wanting to figure out the best plates to use to make the highest quality ground products that I can.

Jamieson22 doing a double grind through an 1/8inch plate then mixing for 3-4 minutes while I add in seasoning and cure.

I currently buy jalapeño patty mix for my ground beef when I want to make jalapeño ground beef and jalapeño Patties. The price per bag to make just six pounds of jalapeño Pattie’s is getting pretty costly for me since I normally do 100 or so pound batches at a time. If I were to switch to just using jalapeño flakes to lower my cost per pound, how much jalapeño flakes do y’all suggest using per pound of ground beef or on a 25 pound batch of ground beef. Thanks for the help.

glen I personally feel like it’s still a pretty grainy texture. I’d like it to be a little more uniform and emulsified rather than crumbly.

Jamieson22 doing a double grind through an 1/8inch plate then mixing for 3-4 minutes while I add in seasoning and cure.

I’ve made about 350 pounds of beef snack sticks within the last couple weeks. The sticks turned out pretty good but I feel that there’s always room for improvement. The snap, smoke, and flavor is good. The thing I’m trying to nail down is the texture. Any master beef stick makers on here have any advice for improving the texture? I’m wondering about the grind size and length of mixing time? Do I need more protein extraction? Would the texture be better with a higher fat to lean ratio? 80/20 compared to 70/30? Also is there any go to additives that would help with the texture? I’m wondering if the amount of water added has a significant effect on the texture as well? A lot to think about here but any help is appreciated!

I work for a new meat processing facility that recently just bought a Mauting Smokehouse. When we got it installed we only got a few smoke cycles programmed into it. I was wondering if anyone else on here has a Mauting Smokehouse and wouldn’t mind helping me out with some more smoke cycles. Im mainly looking for some cured pork loin cycles as well as a pulled pork cycle. Any help or direction on where to find more cycles would be greatly appreciated.

I will be pumping 30 pounds of bellies tomorrow to make bacon. I have a 5 lb bag of bacon cure that says to use 1.75 lbs. of cure to a gallon of water for a 10 percent pump. I am wondering how much brine I need to mix up to have enough to pump all 30 pounds of bellies?

processhead do you normally use the same plates and grind through twice? Or do you grind once with one plate and then switch to a smaller plate and grind again a second time?

So I am wondering what the preferred method is for grinding beef and pork trim into ground product. I recently just got a new mixer/grinder and I am looking into all the different sizes of plates and knives that I can buy for it, such as 1/4", 1/8", 3/16". As far as methods go, does everyone prefer switching plates for a course and fine grind? Just course grinding twice? Any other methods that anyone prefers? I will be mixing in seasonings for pork sausage, snack sticks, summer sausages, and other further processed products like that into the mixer/grinder. Just wanting to figure out the best plates to use to make the highest quality ground products that I can.

I am planning to use Walton’s products for most of my cured products that I will be making in the processing facility that I help manage. It is a USDA Inspected facility and as a part of the HACCP Pre-Requisite program we have to have a formulation sheet available for all the cured products that we make. The formulation sheet has to include the weight of each individual ingredient in a batch of 100 pounds of meat block. The formulation sheet will be used to verify weight records for nitrite and sodium erythorbate. Any suggestions on how I can get these amounts figured out for my HACCP Plan?