Late Day Smoke of Beef Pepperoni Sticks

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pasteelerfan

Newbie
Original poster
Oct 26, 2010
6
13
Central PA
I did a late-day smoke of beef pepperoni sticks yesterday that ended around midnight.  I followed Bearcarver's recipe for unstuffed beef pepperoni sticks with one exception....no anise!  Replaced the anise with a couple tsp of ground cayenne pepper.  Anyway, here's some pics of the adventure.....

Mixed all ingredients in with 5 lbs of ground beef (see bearcraver's recipe) and let it cure over night.  Next day, I did the rolling pin and saran wrap method to make the sticks.  Got 43 sticks out of my mixture.

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Next night, I fired up the smoker to 180 degrees and got a good smoke rolling with apple wood chips......

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Put on the pepperoni sticks and checked them after about 1.5 hours.....I maintained 180 degrees for the 4 hours and smoked heavily with apple wood throughout.

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Removed the sticks and fridged overnight.....this is next day during processing.  Obviously, the yield was much less at this point due to a lot of sampling that took place.  Hey, can't serve substandard stuff to my family and friends!

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I cut them into approximately 1 inch bite-sized pieces and got out the food saver......

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And that's about it.  This is my first post with pics, so critiques are welcome!
 
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It looks good and I would like to know how you liked it thou. To me it doesn't look very red in color. I have been wanting to do somemore pepperoni too.
 
Those look great PA Steeler Fan!

They also look very familiar--LOL.

I don't know what that anise was in there for anyway. I might lose it on my next batch too. I don't think I'll miss it. 
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I don't like to cut them into bite-sized pieces, because of the ends drying up a little more than the middles.

Doesn't mean my way is best.

Thanks for showing,

Bearcarver
 
mballi.....they taste awesome and the texture is great but you're right, the color of the finished product was a little dark.  You can see in the pic of the sticks on the smoker, that they had a nice reddish color at about half way through the smoke.  I think I had the temp too high.  Next time, I'll try a little lower temp and little longer smoke.  Can't do the graduated temp method like Bearcarver because getting that type of temp control out of my ECB is more than I want to tackle.  When I dumped the charcoal pan the next day, I found a stick that rolled off the lower rack during the smoke....that one was REALLLY dark!!!

Bearcarver....I never thought of the ends drying out, but I hope the vacuum sealing helps prevent some of that.  Great advice for next time, though....I'll probably leave them in sticks.  Thanks!

Well, I'm off to open up a pack of pepperoni and watch some Sunday Night Football!!
 
Bearcarver....I never thought of the ends drying out, but I hope the vacuum sealing helps prevent some of that.  Great advice for next time, though....I'll probably leave them in sticks.  Thanks!
PSF,

I'm sure you'll be alright in the freezer. I mainly meant drying after you open the pack. I have to keep my weight down, because of my BP, so I pick at my beef sticks. You'll probably eat the 2 sticks you have in short time, so no time to dry up. I might nurse a pair of them for 3 days. 
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Bear
 
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