Oozing Snack Sticks?

[JerBear]

My cousin and I made up our fourth batch of snack sticks and this is the second batch that we dehydrated (at 150 F). He mentioned that when squeezed they oozed something yellow and cheese-like and I suspect it's fat (there was no cheese added to the mix).

I'm thinking we just way overdid the fat content. The recipe suggestions are to use 7# of venison to #3 of pork trim. Assuming an up to 50% fat content on trim the max of the recipe would normally be around 15% fat. When we did this last batch we did all 9 lbs pork shoulder (assuming 20% fat) and 1 lb fat back making 28% fat if my math is correct. For normal sausages this ratio normally would be fine for me but I think the heat+dehydration did me in. Definite greasiness in the throat after eating.

Edit: With additional introspection I also realized that we dehydrated at least 30% weight loss which would have jacked the fat content into the stratosphere. At least they're still tasty!



Apologies for the bad picture, I was at a stop light....

[Big Guy]

It looks to me that you smoked/dehydrated them at too high of a temp and you rendered the fat out of your mix and it conjealed under the casing. watch your temp carefully and never go above 175F. The yellow colour is from the smoke and or the colour leaching from the case.

[JerBear]

Correct me if I'm wrong but you're saying that fat content/percent may have been ok? I asked my cousin about the temp and he said that he dried them at the same temp as the last batch without issue and confirmed 150.

Unfortunately the instruction manual online doesn't say anything about temp control, just time. Will have to talk to my cousin more tomorrow to get more details....

[Big Guy]

I would set the dehydrator at 150 and then measure the actual temp, don't rely on the dial setting of the machine , they can be off by quite a bit.

[Oddwookiee]

I have to disagree- that is a gigantic amount of fat for a snack stick (called pepperoni or pepperoni sticks as well around here), not a result of heat rendering. 28% is a wildly high amount of fat for a wet mix . I make venison pepperoni like that and the wet mix starts at 10% fat, never above 12%. The few times I've had to start with a higher fat %, generally on custom orders from fat beef or sheep, we get exactly that result- the fat just comes right out.

I cook in an Enviro-Pak convection smokehouse. 22mm x 50' casings are stuffed in a continuous strand and hung in 48" loops, then run in the house for a full 10 hour cycle at an air temp of 174F, down to 168F if it's a less then full load or up to 178F if I'm running a wetter or high sugar item. It gets to air temp within 2 hours and then drys & cooks from there. The only times I've ever had a problem with fat squeezing out like that, barring a high vegetable proportion or acid in the mix, is starting out with too much fat.

[JerBear]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll let you know how the next batch works out.