I've been here reading for a while, but I never joined the forum. My BDS 6 rack worked great for ribs and roasts. A while back I tried to smoke summer sausage and my controller went out. So I ended up using my buddy's obs to smoke the meat and Bradley sent a new controller which was very good of them. I finally installed the controller after moving and haven't been smoking for a while and it worked great or so I thought. I smoked snack sticks today and started at 120f to dry and pumped it up 10 degrees f every 2.5 hours to 170. I screwed up by not using a secondary thermometer. I checked my it and it was at 120 12 hours into this. I checked my oven temp and it was reading 20 degrees lower than what my controller says. I played with it over and over again I even drove and bought a new thermometer to make sure it wasn't false readings and it also measured 20 degrees lower than controller temp. So I know I messed up by not checking. My question now is did I ruin this batch of sticks? They were treated with cure number 2 but I'm wondering if the it was too low for too long even with cure. I have them cooking at a true 170 for now trying to bring the It up to 150. I'm just curious if they are still good or not.
You are still alright and definitely have nothing to worry about.
My question is why did you use Cure #2, for cooked sausage; when Cure #1 is the preferred choice for cooked sausage?
I may have been mistaken it may be cure number one. Ingredients are salt 6.25 sodium nitrate, red 3, let than 2 percent sodium silica aluminate, and propylene glycol. It's what the local butcher supply packages and sell for sausage. What would that be?
That is the percentage for Cure #1, but check to see if it is nitrites, and not nitrates. If it is nitrites, that is the ingredient formula for Cure #1.
How did your sticks turn out?