Question about making pepperoni?? Updated with pics of first batch!!

[jrebel]

When making Venison pepperoni, do you add pork??  If so how much??  I am going to try my hand it it today / tomorrow and am struggling with adding pork vs beaf and how much.

Thanks

Johnny

[Boss .300 winmag]

Pm Weazel he makes it a lot. 

[wannabhntr]

I just made 20 lbs at the beginning of October. I used my left over burger which was mixed 10 to 1 with beef fat. I used 14 lbs of burger with 6 lbs of pork butt and shoulder. Turned out amazing.

[fishngamereaper]

For pepperoni I use about 20% pork. I found some pork belly at Costco this year for cheap. Nice thing about using pork is that it tightens up your mix so when its done it cuts clean and has the nice marbled look to it. And tastes really good.

[Lightning_Rider]

We take all our meat that is to be ground up for pepperoni, kielbasa, summer sausage, etc. and store it in bags of 18lbs... Then when we pull em out to make sausage or pepperoni, we add 7lbs of pork butt for each bag. Its super convenient doing it this way because most of our batches are either 50lbs or 100lbs.

[dogtuk]

70/30 venison/pork is a good mix you can go 50/50 but any more and the pork over powers the venison I like using porkbutt shoulder and porkbutt is on sale at cash and carry for 128 a pound right now

[jrebel]

Well I went with a 40/60 pork venison mix.  Made up 10 lbs of peperoni sticks and will be smoking / cooking them tomorrow.  I cooked a small amount of both batches (one spicy, one not) and both tasted absolutely delicious.  I will be smoking them on the treager tomorrow.....Any reccomendations or secrets when it comes to smoking pep sticks.  My plan was to smoke at 150 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes and then turn up the temp to 200 until I reach an internal temp of 165.  Thoughts?? 

 

[lokidog]

For pepperoni I use about 20% pork. I found some pork belly at Costco this year for cheap. Nice thing about using pork is that it tightens up your mix so when its done it cuts clean and has the nice marbled look to it. And tastes really good.

 

One part lean pork shoulder to four parts venison.  Hope you used lean or your 40% mix might be a bit greasy.

[LndShrk]

Well I went with a 40/60 pork venison mix.  Made up 10 lbs of peperoni sticks and will be smoking / cooking them tomorrow.  I cooked a small amount of both batches (one spicy, one not) and both tasted absolutely delicious.  I will be smoking them on the treager tomorrow.....Any reccomendations or secrets when it comes to smoking pep sticks.  My plan was to smoke at 150 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes and then turn up the temp to 200 until I reach an internal temp of 165.  Thoughts?? 

 

If you go to 200 deg you will melt the fat.
Typically when smoking pep sticks I smoke at 130 deg for a couple hours then slowly ramp up to 170 deg. Once the Internal Temp reaches 130 I put them in a hot water bath to finish them off. The hot water temp is at 170 deg. Once internal temp of pep sticks reaches 160 they are done. (This all assumes you use instacure in your recipe)

[sdagle]

I have done a lot of batches of snack sticks.  If you are looking for all wild game with fat (which I use now) I use 10% pork fat.  So if you are using seasoning for a 25 lb batch it would be 2.5 lbs of  pork fat to 22.5 lbs venison.   Using 70% venison 30% pork butt works but I prefer using venison\pork fat method.

[Netminder01]

tag

[jrebel]

First Batch done and I think it turned out great.  Next batch (spicy) is on the smoker now and will be coming off in a few hours.   

[h20hunter]

Looks great.

[lamrith]

For those of us not in the know, how would pepperoni be different than say Jerky made with ground meat and seasoning.  Does it have to do with the skins and how it is cooked?

I am just getting started and using a Nesco Jerky shooter kit.  1st batch turned out good and family loves it, just wanting to continually try new things.  I have a variety pack on the way now from them to try more flavors.....

[jrebel]

For those of us not in the know, how would pepperoni be different than say Jerky made with ground meat and seasoning.  Does it have to do with the skins and how it is cooked?

I am just getting started and using a Nesco Jerky shooter kit.  1st batch turned out good and family loves it, just wanting to continually try new things.  I have a variety pack on the way now from them to try more flavors.....

So I have done lots of whole muscle jerky and ground jerky in the past.  To me the pepperoni is different in the fact that it is in a case and not as dry as jerky.  Otherwise it is the same concept.  I know some people like their pepperoni drier than others....at which time it is very similar to ground jerky. 

[ridgefire]

Looks great

[lokidog]

 

[jrebel]

The spicy blend is  OUT OF THIS WORLD DELICIOUS!!   Perfect amount of spice.   

[Boss .300 winmag]

The spicy blend is  OUT OF THIS WORLD DELICIOUS!!   Perfect amount of spice.   

Post your recipe dude!   

[kingmountain]

Please post time and temp for the traeger, Interested in trying some on the traeger. Thanks

[grundy53]

The spicy blend is  OUT OF THIS WORLD DELICIOUS!!   Perfect amount of spice.   

Post your recipe dude!   

THIS!

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk

[92xj]

Did you make true pepperoni or just snack sticks with the spicy blend?

[jrebel]

Here is the recipe...

Used High Mountain Mandarine Teryaki seasoning kit in reccomended amounts.
Added: (per 5 lb batch
     -  0.5 oz garlic powder (not garlic salt)
     -  0.3 oz cayanne powder
     -  0.5 oz crushed ready pepper (could use more if you like depending on level of spice)  I would rate this a 3 star out of 5. 

My venison / pork mixture was 60/40 (second batch 70/30 and it turned out great.) revised  and it seemed to work really well.  My pork butt was bought from Cash and Carry not trimmed just gound.  I am sure you could use whatever percentage you wanted but this was not very greasy at all. 

Traeger directions:

Start traeger on smoke with the lid open for the first 10 minutes.  Close lid and alow the smoker to come to temp (it was really cold today so my smoke setting temp ran around 140 ish).  Smoke for 1.5 hours then turn up temp to 180.  Approx 1 to 1.5 until internal temp was 155 ish.  I turned my traeger to 225 to get to a finished temp of 165-170; which only took about 15-20 minutes.  Pulled them off the traeger and moved them insided to a cookie sheet.  I flipped the sticks over on the cookie sheet so the top was now on the bottom (don't know why but thought it may help with any fat that had rendered and it could soak back through the entire stick).  Let stand for 1 hour to cool off.  Cut the sticks into package lengths (great time to sample) and then let cool for another 30 minutes in the fridge before vaccuum sealing. 

[jrebel]

Did you make true pepperoni or just snack sticks with the spicy blend?

I guess I don't know the difference??  They are not dehydrated so I guess more like snack sticks.   

[92xj]

Pepperoni is an actual flavor not a generic term. They do make pepperoni mixes for snack sticks. I prefer it the least out of most of the snack stick flavors I've made.

[TomT]

For those who still need to make sausage, Cash and Carry has boneless pork butt on sale for about another week for $1.28lb.  Cheapest I have ever seen.
It's what I've used for years and works great.

[jrebel]

My second batch I slimmed down on the pork to a 70/30 mix and it still turned out great.  I will use the 70/30 mix from now on.   

[Crunchy]

which casings are best?

[jrebel]

which casings are best?

Not sure what is best....I used the cologin casings that came with the kit and they worked.  They were fiberous.....and a little tough but not horrible.  I would love to here from others if there is a good casing. 

[dogtuk]

The cologin casing is the easiest to use on stix you can use sheep casings but I find them hard to work with I use the 21mm cologin casing for stix just make sure you get the ones for smoked sausages or you will have a mess the ones for fresh sausages break real easy