I have been thinking about making some bacon cheddar snack sticks, most likely with 93 beef and bacon, and cheddar, Because the bacon will add alot of fat content Im guessing, So my question is would grind the bacon and just mix it in and make the sticks as you would normally or would you have to precook the bacon some?? Im not sure on this so any feed back would be very helpful, I want to thank you all in advance Thanks
Sure you can grind bacon in with the meat. You will need to adjust the cure as the bacon will have been cured already.
Yes ok, but do you think the bacon would need to precook the bacon as the internal temp on the sticks I do is only 148 - 152
No, you don't need to precook the bacon. When you smoke bacon and take it to an IT of 140-150, technically it is fully cooked. Frying later only serves to heat it and crisp it. You will be fine with grinding the bacon "as is" along with your beef.
Thank you I thought it should be ok, but wanted to make sure thanks again
I would add the cure to the ground beef then mix in the ground bacon. The bacon is already cured and most likely cooked.
Thank you all for the input, What I did was I used 3lbs of bacon to 15lbs of 93% ground beef but cut the cure back by the 3lbs for the bacon I used I hope this is close to being right Im thinking it should be ok, it is in the fridge getting happy as I type this I will stuff and smoke tomorrow this method seems to work the best for me, as the casings dont seem to peel as opposed to stuffing right away and let sit over night in the fridge then smoke, Thanks again for all the help