Ground Meat Processing

So, hoping someone on here may be able to help. I bought a different brand of seasonings than I usually use when making jerky/snack sticks and I just noticed the directions are different. The brand I usually get (hi mountain) had me let the snack sticks sit overnight after I stuffed the casings before smoking. The instructions on the brand I picked up this time (LEM) have no mention of letting them sit beofre smoking, so I can only assume they expect your going to go straight from stuffing to in the smoker.

My question then comes, will it hurt (ruin) the snack sticks if I still stuffed them and let them sit overnight (refridgerated of course)? Since the weather is going to be crap this weekend my mother and I planned on making a lot of the snacks for our trip in 2 weeks this saturday (smoked snack sticks, dryed fruit roll-ups, and deep fried donuts (frozen of course so they are still ‘fresh’ in 2 weeks). Not that I couldn’t stuff them saturday morning, but we’ve got a lot to get done saturday with the time we will have so it would be nice to stick with my ‘normal’ stick making routine and get all the prep work done tomorow night so all I’ve got to do saturday is get the smoker going and toss em in.

I don’t see any reason why stuffing them and refrigerating them would hurt anything. More time to cure should be a good thing.

I asked on the smoking meats forum
and they said it will be fine

Typically the overnight time frame is to let the cure set into the meat.
You will also notice the flavors be different, generally better, if you give the spices time to set into the meat as well.

It is my opinion you will always be happier if you let the seasoned or stuffed meat sit over night before smoking or even dehydrating.

I am willing to selflessly perform quality-assurance testing on your finished product. Send 20 or 30 pounds of it to me and I’ll let you know if the remainder of the batch is safe to eat…

Thanks guys, I suspected it would be fine, but I’m still relatively new to making the snack sticks and this is my first departure from the Hi mountain seasonings so just needed to hear confirmation that it was ok to let it sit.

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I am willing to selflessly perform quality-assurance testing on your finished product. Send 20 or 30 pounds of it to me and I’ll let you know if the remainder of the batch is safe to eat…

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Thanks guys, I suspected it would be fine, but I’m still relatively new to making the snack sticks and this is my first departure from the Hi mountain seasonings so just needed to hear confirmation that it was ok to let it sit.

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You’re good to go doing it this way.

If you are adventuresome, try seasoning the meat with a straight summer sauge seasoning instead of the stick seasoning and add a couple tablespoons of coarse ground pepper and a couple tablespoons of HOT chili powder to the mix before stuffing. Give them a light smoke and let them cool/dry in the garage un-covered for a couple days. These might amaze you.

That sounds really tasty

“If you are adventuresome, try seasoning the meat with a straight summer sauge seasoning instead of the stick seasoning and add a couple tablespoons of coarse ground pepper and a couple tablespoons of HOT chili powder to the mix before stuffing. Give them a light smoke and let them cool/dry in the garage un-covered for a couple days. These might amaze you. “

That does sound good to me, but this batch is to go with us up to Kabetogama for our family trip in 2 weeks and Ketchup is ‘spicy’ to my parents, so probably not a good batch to try it out, but will definitely have to try it sometime.