Spent the weekend making venison jerky and snack sticks.  Those of you that know me understand that I have quite a supply of ground venison and my family is always looking out for new ways to use it.  See my earlier post "The Swiss Army Knife of Recipes - Venison Meatballs."  Well, color me happy.  

I have been contemplating making my own jerky for quite some time.  I actually made Pepperoni Snack Sticks on the Big Green Egg one time, and while they were tasty, the process was somewhat of a nightmare.  You can only imagine the look on my wife's face when she walked into the kitchen and I was stuffing collagen casings with ground venison using her cookie press.  I had pepperoni everywhere and the whole process took entirely too long to make it feasible to feed my family.  My one take away from that experience was that a Kitchen Aid Mixer does a bang up job of mixing spices in meat.

So a couple of weeks ago, a friend asked if I would like to borrow a dehydrator.  Well duh.  Off to the local Academy to purchase a Jerky Cannon.  Much better than the cookie press.  Also purchased some Hi Mountain seasoning and cure.  Sweet and Spicy as well as Jalapeño.  Mixed 3 pounds of Sweet & Spicy in the mixer.  Started with the jerky nozzle.  The results were excellent.  Drying time was about 6 hours. Still, my process was missing something.  It was difficult to fit 3 pounds of jerky strips on the round trays and I only managed one batch for the whole weekend.  That first batch lasted about 4 days so I had to come up with a way to increase production.

My lawyer mind went to work and I decided that I could fit easily fit 3 pounds if I would squeeze the jerky out in a spiral instead of putting straight strips on a round tray.  So this weekend, I went with the Jalapeño flavor and did what amounts to a jerky cinnamon roll.  Much easier and a better use of the round real-estate.  By the way, my family prefers the Sweet & Spicy over the jalapeño flavor.  Still, my technique was lacking something.  When you are squeezing the gun, it it a pain to stop and turn the tray.  Enter the Lazy Susan.  I purchased a small Lazy Susan, on which to place the round dehydrator trays.  As you squeeze out the meat, the Lazy Susan allows the tray to spin.  As a result, you can keep the gun in one place and squeeze away.  The process worked great.  I also learned that while I can only fit 3 pounds of jerky in the dehydrator at one time, I can fit 6 pounds of snack sticks.

As a result of my refined process, I was able to make 3 pounds of Jalapeño Jerky, 3 pounds of Sweet & Spicy Snack Sticks and 6 pounds of Pepperoni Sticks in one weekend. My Pepperoni is in the dehydrator as I type.  Hopefully, 12 pounds of venison snacks will last through the week.