Turkey snack stix

[Big Guy]

Last week Save-a-lot had ground turkey on for $0.99/lb I bought 20#

I took out 8# and semi thawed it and ground it with 2# of beef fat from a brisket I had trimmed



Added spices and stuffed into 19 mm collagen cases





linking into individual stix



into the smoker



all done



the recipe

Slim Jims


8 lbs.turkey 2 lbs. beef fat
5 Tbs. salt
2 tsp. cure
1 Tbs. white pepper, ground
1 Tbs. nutmeg
1 Tbs. celery seed, ground
1 Tbs. curry powder
1 ½ Tbs. black pepper, ground
1 ½ Tbs. garlic granules
2 Tbs. liquid smoke
1 cup milk powder
1 cup ice water

Grind meat through fine plate, mix with spices well. Stuff into 19 mm. collagen casings, tie into 8” links. Put in smoker( no smoke) to dry at 130 F for an hour, continue to smoke at 150 F for 3 hrs with heavy smoke, and slowly increase smoker temp to 175 F and smoke until internal temp of 152. Let cool in smoker.

[mitchamus]

they look awesome!

[crustyo44]

Hi Big Guy,
A wonderful job well done. I will be having a go them shortly too as we have sometimes turkey meat on super specials as well.
I hate to use cure, is it necessary? If you heat the product enough when smoking and freeze it afterwards, I thought that cure is not required then.
You and other brainy peoples advise is greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Jan. Brisbane.

[Big Guy]

Cure is definatly needed. You need to smoke these sausages at a low temps 150F and finally at 175. It usually takes 8-10 hrs to reach 150F . The standard thinking is if you don't use cure you must get your meat over 140 in less than 4 hrs or you could be building toxins. You just can't get the stix up to that temp in that short time without having the smoker temp higher. If you raise the temp you will render out the fat in the sausage and it will be very dry and inedible like sawdust.

[Jogeephus]

Glad to see you didn't give up sausage making for golf or fishing. Wonderful job as always. Will give it a go myelf. Did you get a new smoker or just pressure wash the other one? This one doesn't look as used as in other pictures I've seen.

[tristar]

Big Guy,

They look fantastic, another on my list of things to do, just have to wait for that special offer turkey!

[Big Guy]

Glad to see you didn't give up sausage making for golf or fishing. Wonderful job as always. Will give it a go myelf. Did you get a new smoker or just pressure wash the other one? This one doesn't look as used as in other pictures I've seen.

I got a new set up to keep here in Florida. A small#12 grinder from Northern tool, a 5# stuffer from them, and the smoker from gander Mountain. Everything was on sale for $99 each. Its good for small batches 5-20 # I won't be making any 100# batches here. LOL

[Jogeephus]

Can you tell any difference in the way the new one smokes compared to the veteran? IMO, it seems that a smoker does a better job once its been tempered a bit.

[Big Guy]

my northern smoker is larger and is propane powered, my southern is only 2/3 the size and its electric. It doesn't produce as much smoke as my northern one. I'm just learning the ins and outs of it.

[crustyo44]

Thanks Big Guy, that makes sense to me.
I presume you use Cure#1.
Thank you again.
Jan. Brisbane.

[Big Guy]

yes cure#1