Sausage Sticks

You really don't need a casing to make those "Slim Jim" type sausages. Just make sure you mix the raw sausage mixture until it gets "tacky" and "bouncy". then extrude and dry as you normally would.

Joe Ames

You might look at a product like SpicenSlice. I have used it before and it made great jerky out of ground chuck. Held together fine. I work at Cabelas part time and we sell it there (sold a lot of other places as well). Their pepperoni is pretty good too.

You need a good stuffer. The small casings are harder to work with and it takes a lot of pressure to push the meat thru the small funnel

joe b - that is what I am looking for - any recommendations on one that really works? I can stuff from my grinder, but the results aren't pretty. Have also tried those 'horn' type push stuffers - not worth a darn. I definately do want it in a casing as I hang it for smoking

A caulking gun does a good job.

Works for me.

:-)

Joe Ames

Joe's right on the money - I use my American Harvest Jerky Works shooter, which is a plastic caulking gun, with the small round tip to fill 18mm collagen casings. Walmart sells the Jerky Works kit for under $15. It's not particularly heavy duty and the biggest disadvantage is that it only holds about a half pound (enough for about 4 feet of stix), but well worth every penny. Eventually I'll graduate to a bigger better shooter when the American Harvest breaks.

I've also used my Salton electric cookie press with the nozzle from the jerky shooter, which worked pretty well too but was harder to clean, and built a small nozzle for the KitchenAid grinder, which didn't work at all. The meat got mushy from being worked too much.

TJ,

Check out places like Albion, www.albioneng.com

Do a Google search for caulking sausage.

There's a huge variety of capacity sizes avalaible, some even have a variety of nozzle sizes that are interchangable.

Makes stuffing a lot easier and controlable. No need for 3 hands. ;-)

Joe

ps. Keep the meat mix cold 40 F is a good target.

Thanks for the info so far - when joe first said caulking gun, I was wondering how silicone sausage would really taste I always keep my meats cold, closer to 35. Do you have to do anything else to make the meat feed through these shooters (like add some water)? I see Gander Mountain down the street has a pretty good sized shooter (may be from Hi Mountain if I remember right) I may give it a try unless there are more posts that sway me in a different direction. Any hints on if it is better to hang sticks to smoke or is it just as good to lay it on racks.
Thakns again for any info.

JMatt,

Assuming you had mixed the raw sausage meat and salt long enough to do a good job of extracting the myosin. If your mix is too stiff, then it certainly can handle more liquid. Add enough so that the mixture can be extruded nicely.
If that Gander Mountain gun is plastic, it should serve you well until you decide to get serious with a good one. ;-).
Hanging the sausages from sticks actually is just to utilize space. For the hobbiest, it doesn't matter, as long as they don't touch and have access to the smoke.

Joe

Cabelas sells the HiMountain jerky shooter for 29.99 (with 2 spice packages included). It's the best one they sell in that price range. They seem to hold up. Look like a stout kind of a caulking gun ( [URL=http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jhtml?id=0009533690080a&navAction=jump&navCount=0&indexId=&podId=0009533&catalogCode=UD&parentId=&parentType= &rid=&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fcatalog%2Fitem-link.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=search&hasJS=true]Hi Mountain Shooter[/URL] ). Right now, their heavy duty Jerky Blaster is on sale until 12/28 I believe for 39.99 (normally 49.99). It holds 1 1/2 pounds and is mostly metal. The handle components are plastic but seem pretty strong. You can even buy extra tubes for it. Been wanting one but spent my available bucks on the CS for now.

[URL=http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/pod/standard-pod-wrapped.jhtml?id=0014969&navAction=jump&navCount=0&indexId=&parentId=&parentType=&rid=&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fco mmon%2Fcatalog%2Fpod-link.jhtml.1_A&_DAV=search]Jerky Shooter[/URL]

Just copy those links to a new browser. The BBS doesn't seem to like those large links. Sorry.

I have one of the jerky Blasters from Cabela's, when I bought it I also got extra tubes. It is a good heavy product and fairly easy to clean. I think if you have a Gander Mountain they have the same product only from LEM, I just bought a dual jerky nozzle there because it is wider than the one I have and now I can modify the original.

Good product only a few dollars more than the all plastic model, it holds more, and also comes with a seasoning kit.

The extra tubes are good if you have help, if you are doing it by yourself then one tube works fine since you are the one that has to fill them anyway,

dave