Smoked Venison Snack Sticks
These snack sticks are made from a combination of venison, beef, and pork, similar to jerky but thinner.
Servings 50
Ingredients
- 9 lbs lean venison
- 5 lbs pork butt
- 1 lb beef trimmings
- 1 ps seasoning stick sausage kit
- water
Instructions
- Coarse-grind the venison and pork butt and pass the beef trimmings through the grinder once.
- Use your hands to combine the meat in your biggest container.
- Add seasoning to meat before grinding. If you pre-ground it, hand-mix it in now.
- Add a little fat first, then pass the meat through the grinder one last time using a quarter-inch plate.
- Mix the cure, water (one ounce of water per pound of ground meat), and ground meat together for five minutes. It’s done when a clump sticks to your hand.
- Use the collagen casings provided in the kit and stuff your sausages.
- Cure the sausages in the fridge for 24 hours.
- Preheat the smoker to 100°F or the lowest setting available.
- Hang about five sausages on each rod before placing them in your smoker.
- After one hour, increase the smoker’s temperature to 150°F and add a full pan of hickory sawdust.
- Around the five hour mark, increase the temperature to 170°F. The snack sticks are done when they reach an internal temperature of 155°F (eight to ten hours later).
- Optional: For drier jerky-style sticks, turn the temperature back down to 155°F and smoke for four hours. Dunk them immediately in an ice bath for five minutes.
- Once cool, cut them into six inch sticks. Place them back on the large baking sheet, uncovered, and in the fridge. Remove when the casings start to bloom.
- Preserve them using a chamber vacuum sealer.