Snappy Smoked Beef & Pork Snack Sticks

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

Gas-station meat sticks, rebuilt with real spices and no casing required. Ground beef and pork are cured overnight, kneaded until tacky so the mix binds like sausage, then piped into pencil-thin ropes and slow-dried until they bend, snap, and taste faintly of smoke. One batch makes about 18 sticks that live in a jar on the counter — the highest-protein snack in the house, and the one that disappears first.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb ground beef (80/20)
• 0.5 lb ground pork
• 2.3 g Prague Powder #1 curing salt (a scant 1/2 teaspoon — weigh it if possible)
• 2.5 tsp fine sea salt (14 g)
• 3 tbsp nonfat dry milk powder
• 1 tbsp dextrose or granulated sugar

• 2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1.5 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground fennel seed
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or 1 tsp for hot sticks)

• 1/3 cup ice water
• 1.5 tsp liquid smoke (hickory)
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1. Measure the cure carefully. Prague Powder #1 is what makes low-temperature drying safe and gives the sticks their cured pink color and tangy snap — but it must be dosed exactly: 2.3 g for this 2 lb batch, which is a scant 1/2 teaspoon leveled. Use a gram scale if you own one, and never round up.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the curing salt, sea salt, milk powder, dextrose, black pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, mustard powder, coriander, fennel, and cayenne. In a second small bowl or cup, stir the ice water with the liquid smoke, Worcestershire, and vinegar.
3. Put the ground beef and pork in a large bowl and keep it cold — if the kitchen is warm, set the bowl inside a larger bowl of ice. Sprinkle the dry mix evenly over the meat, then pour in the wet mix.
4. Mix with a sturdy spoon or your hand (a food-safe glove helps) for 3 to 4 full minutes. This is the most important step: you want the meat to go from crumbly to sticky, gluey, and pasty, clinging to the side of the bowl in a single mass. That protein extraction is what holds casing-free sticks together.
5. Press the mixture flat in the bowl, cover tightly against the surface, and refrigerate 12 to 24 hours. The cure distributes evenly and the flavor deepens noticeably.
6. Set two wire racks over rimmed baking sheets, or ready your dehydrator trays. Load the meat into a jerky gun with the stick nozzle, or into a heavy quart zip-top bag with a 1/2-inch opening snipped off one corner (a piping bag with a large plain round tip works too).
7. Pipe ropes about 1/2 inch thick and 6 inches long directly onto the racks, leaving 1/2 inch between them. Keep them even in thickness so they dry at the same rate. Wet fingers can gently round off any ragged ends.
8. Oven method: set the oven to its lowest setting, ideally 170°F, and prop the door open 1 to 2 inches with a wooden spoon so moisture escapes. Dry 4 to 6 hours, rotating the pans and flipping the sticks with a thin spatula at the 2-hour mark. Dehydrator method: 160°F for 5 to 7 hours, flipping once.
9. The sticks are done when they are deep mahogany, firm, dry to the touch, and no longer squishy in the center — they should bend a good way before snapping, not break like a twig. Verify with an instant-read thermometer inserted lengthwise into a thick stick: you want it to have passed 160°F. A finished stick loses roughly 35 to 40 percent of its raw weight, so 2 lb of mix yields about 1 lb 4 oz of sticks.
10. Blot any beaded fat off with paper towels while still warm, then cool completely on the racks, about 45 minutes — they firm up and tighten as they cool. Seal in a jar or zip-top bag and let them rest overnight so the moisture equalizes; the texture becomes noticeably more uniform and less leathery on the outside.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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