TexLaw That’s what I thought. Must have been some bad Bourbon.
Or a lot of the good stuff.

knifemaker3
I used 1/4" steel rod from Menards. But it depends on the width of your smoker and the weight your hanging.

Jonathon Do you think I need to add more Venison to the mix? Or is it OK for Summer sausage and snack sticks as is?

Jonathon I am adding sure gel and ECA. If I make up the 4lb with pork belly do you think I would be ok? Or should I try to find some straight pork fat trim? I could decrease the venison burger if needed.

Thanks Jonathon and everyone else for the assistance. I’ll let you know how things go. Hope to bring some to work on Monday. The Tech’s normally eat anything that’s free, but I’ll ask their opinion on how the summer sausage came out.

There are Sous Vide controllers out there that you can plug anything into such as a roaster pan or slow cooker. It will cycle the power to the appliance to keep the water temp closer to what you want. If you really want to get fancy you could get a PID controller that learns how your appliance heats up and cools down and will cycle the power to keep the temp VERY close to your set temp.

No humidity as that was not mentioned in the smoking instructions for snack sticks. My bad. When should you start adding the humidity? Right after the drying cycle? And is this the same for all smoking sessions?
How long on average does it take for 19mm. snack sticks to reach 160 deg. Using your recommend smoking times.?

Just did a 25 pound batch of snack sticks this past week and did most of them in a hot water bath to finish after smoking to about 140 degrees. That worked out well. However I left a few strands to finish in the smoker following the recommended schedule and it took almost 9 hours! When they reached 160 they were so dry they were almost like Jerky. I’m I missing something? Should it take that long? Any ideas would be welcome.

TexLaw That’s what I thought. Must have been some bad Bourbon.
Or a lot of the good stuff.

I thought I saw a while ago that you should consider the weight of all your ingredients to equal the total weight of the batch. I.E. meat,seasoning, cheese, additional items equal one 25 lbs. Batch. Is this correct? Or is it 25lbs of meat plus everything else equals one batch.

knifemaker3
I used 1/4" steel rod from Menards. But it depends on the width of your smoker and the weight your hanging.

There are Sous Vide controllers out there that you can plug anything into such as a roaster pan or slow cooker. It will cycle the power to the appliance to keep the water temp closer to what you want. If you really want to get fancy you could get a PID controller that learns how your appliance heats up and cools down and will cycle the power to keep the temp VERY close to your set temp.

Thanks Jonathon and everyone else for the assistance. I’ll let you know how things go. Hope to bring some to work on Monday. The Tech’s normally eat anything that’s free, but I’ll ask their opinion on how the summer sausage came out.

Jonathon I am adding sure gel and ECA. If I make up the 4lb with pork belly do you think I would be ok? Or should I try to find some straight pork fat trim? I could decrease the venison burger if needed.

Jonathon Talked to him. Pork Butts. He seemed OK with making sausage with the mix. Said that’s what he uses. Thinking of adding 4lb of straight ground Venison to the 21lb burger mix and give it a whirl.
Using the Habanero BBQ with Cheddar.

Jonathon Do you think I need to add more Venison to the mix? Or is it OK for Summer sausage and snack sticks as is?