In an effort to make up for my less than stellar first use of my OBS, tonight I smoked 5lbs of beef snack sticks. Lemme say, these things turned out awesome! Way better than store bought (cause I made em). I'm definitely hooked on using a Bradley.
Here's a bit of the finished product.
My recipe (gleaned from various other recipes on the net)
5lbs ground beef
6tsp Morton TQ
3tsp garlic powder
2tsp whole mustard seed
1tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
1tbsp ground black pepper
2tbsp brown sugar
2tbsp powdered non-fat milk
1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
Mixed ingredients and let sit over night. Stuffed into 19mm collagen casings and placed in the racks.
Preheated the smoker to 180F. Once it got there, started up the smoke and put in the racks of meat. Temp dropped to 150F
Smoked at 150F for 2hours using hickory
Upped the temp to 180-190F and take to internal temp of 165 (took me about another two hours)
Let cool and cut into bite size pieces.
Couple of notes. Still warm, the cheese seems non-existant. That could change once these cool in the fridge overnight.
I like spicy food and the one recipe I based mine off of called for 2tbsp of red pepper flakes. The flakes I have are extra hot, so I that's why I halved the amount. Next time I"ll keep to the original two, or maybe three. As they stand, they're perfect for my friends.
All in all, I'm impressed with how they turned out. Next up, this weekend, baby back ribs.
