20lbs Signature Smoked Kielbasa. Ground, mixed, and stuffed the night before. Getting some cherry smoke right now, followed by an ice bath, and then air dry.

Hey there! First attempt making Willies Snack Sticks.

50/50 pork beef mix.
Willies Snack Stick Seasoning.
ECA.
Sure Gel.

Had to mix by hand unfortunately. I see a mixer in my near future. Looked like I achieved good protein extraction. Last minute added ECA. Stuffed into 19mm casings.

On to my Rec-Teq 700, which unfortunately can’t go lower than 180. Smoked with an extra smoke tube for about 2 hours, until IT about 140*, then into a turkey roaster for a bath at 170ish for about 40 minutes. Pulled when IT was about 165*

Taste and texture seem really good. Hoping a nice overnight air dry in fridge makes them even better.

I suppose the main question that I have is that given that incredibly short processing time because of my high smoker temp, would the ECA have enough time to activate and help the cure as I went pretty much straight from stuffing to smoking. I just see some people going hours and hours…just hoping I didn’t mess up!!! The texture and color would lead me to believe it worked just fine. Just curious what others think?

Thanks again, love the community!

Chris

I did 15 years in Accounting/Finance/Consulting. Hated every minute of it. Went back to school and got a Masters degree in Special Education. Now I teach special ed in high school.

Going to bring in a bunch of Paczki for my students.

Dave in AZ I used the tubed 35-38mm natural hog casings and the spices was the Signature Smoked Kielbasa! The only thing I added was a couple tablespoons of extra mustard seed.

Chris from outside Chicago. Been grilling and making bbq for several years now. Started with a WSM 22" and now have a Rec-Tec 700. Have been getting into grinding my own meat and making sausages. Found Walton’s for casings and couldn’t be happier with them. Looking forward to learning alot more from this group!

cdavis It’s a donut on steroids. Some are filled with fruit fillings, others are filled with cream fillings. They’re big in the Chicago area.

Those look amazing!

zbigjeff Very nice! I’ve been playing around with grind. These were a coarse grind followed by a fine. Give it a fairly emulsified texture, which I happen to like. However, I do like the look of having defined meat particles/chunks, so I am definitely going to play with the grind some more.

Dr_Pain said in First Attempt At Snack Sticks:

I can’t add to the discussion because that is what I would have said. Those sticks do look mighty delicious. Let us know if the overnight helped taste and texture

The overnight rest in fridge worked great! They firmed up really nicely and I thought the flavor was more pronounced the next day.

zbigjeff Very nice! I’ve been playing around with grind. These were a coarse grind followed by a fine. Give it a fairly emulsified texture, which I happen to like. However, I do like the look of having defined meat particles/chunks, so I am definitely going to play with the grind some more.

Jonathon Nothing special. Just my Iphone X camera! Natural light is the biggest help to making pics look good, at least in my experience with only an Iphone to take pics.

Dave in AZ I used the tubed 35-38mm natural hog casings and the spices was the Signature Smoked Kielbasa! The only thing I added was a couple tablespoons of extra mustard seed.

20lbs Signature Smoked Kielbasa. Ground, mixed, and stuffed the night before. Getting some cherry smoke right now, followed by an ice bath, and then air dry.

cdavis It’s a donut on steroids. Some are filled with fruit fillings, others are filled with cream fillings. They’re big in the Chicago area.

Going to bring in a bunch of Paczki for my students.

Dr_Pain I kept the not so visually appealing ones for my family. Still taste great. Like you all have said with the fat rendering out, the ones without casing seem to have a drier texture, which I actually don’t mind at all! Taste is spot on.

Great! Thanks for the input. There was a bit more fat out than my first batch, but not too bad. I’ll keep them for home consumption!!

Hey there! After my first attempt at snack stick, which came out pretty amazing and was a happy accident mostly, I decided to do another batch of snack sticks.

Pretty much identical process as I did before, except this time I used the Honey BBQ flavor.

During water bather in my turkey roaster, i noticed they were taking some time to get to 150* IT so I bumped the water temp a bit, as per Murphy’s law, I got a phone call.

Upon checking them after the phone call I noticed the water had creeped to 190*. When I looked at the sticks, most of the 19mm smoked collagen casings had split and come off the snack sticks. Doh!!!

I ice bathed them and cut them to length. While not visually appealing the taste is still great, just no casings. Hahaha. I plan on still air drying them overnight in the fridge.

I guess my question is are they still ok?

Thanks for any insight!

Those look amazing! Thanks for sharing.