Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

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sausagemaneric
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Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by sausagemaneric » Sun Nov 06, 2022 16:45

HI all,
I've never made slim Jims or as they may be called dried beef sticks. In Rytek's book it is a pretty straight forward recipe, though it calls for Fermento, a product that has a dairy base and nothing with dairy can be used in our household. So I have two questions, can Bacto-Ferm be used in place of fermento? Or maybe a Lactic Acid Starter Culter(I've never seen a Lactic Acid Starter Culter with Dairy). Also, let's just say I can use one of those for a proper creation of a slim jim.....how are slim jims stored and what is their shelf life?

Thanks!
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by RJOB » Sun Nov 06, 2022 23:40

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Bentley Meredith
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by Bentley Meredith » Mon Nov 07, 2022 01:52

I am not sure about home made, but I am pretty sure Slim Jims are shelf stable, that is why they an sit in a 7-11 for 17 years and be OK! Wish I could help you with the culture, but I am not the guy to advise you on that! But thanks for the heads up on the fermento. I have made beef sticks before, but always smoker dried, so not even close to a Slim Jim. Gonna get some of that Fermento and try and make some real ones!
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by Dave in AZ » Mon Nov 07, 2022 07:12

I wouldn't use fermento anyways... it's just cultured buttermilk, and not really accurate flavor rendition.

You COULD just make beef meatsticks with like 1% dextrose and use any culture like F-LC or LHP to ferment to strong acidic tang, 4.6 or such, over 24 to 36 hrs. Then smoke.
But much easier to just use encapsulated citric acid for meat sticks if you havent made before. Or just forego the tang and make a good basic meatstick from various spice blend packs, then dry in fridge a bit.

Shelf stable... hard to be sure without water activity meter. But 2.5% salt, pH 4.6 to 3.8, dry to 40% weight loss, probably good.
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by Bentley Meredith » Mon Nov 07, 2022 21:40

The thing I liked about the fermento was no need to wait on fermentation. You can mix, pipe, smoke and dry!
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by jcflorida » Mon Nov 07, 2022 23:59

sausagemaneric wrote:
Sun Nov 06, 2022 16:45
can Bacto-Ferm be used in place of fermento
Simple answer, no. You can certainly use one of the bacto-ferms to produce the "tang" flavor(like LHP as Dave suggested), but you will require addition of a fermentation step. AND Fermento is also used as a binder, that the bacto-ferm will not supply.

Encapsulated Citric Acid (~1%) will also provide the "tang", but again, no binder.

Binder is not required if you're willing to VERY VERY thoroughly mix with some ice water to provide very good myosin extraction.

A more reasonable approach that avoids milk is to use a non-dairy binder like carrot fiber IAW package directions.

I've successfully made something similar to snack sticks without binder by double grinding through a 3mm plate then mixing in relatively small quantities in a Kitchenaid mixer for about 6-8 minutes. Make sure it stays as cold as possible.

I've considered, but never tried the carrot fiber.

https://www.amazon.com/Encapsulated-Cit ... 783&sr=8-6

https://www.amazon.com/C-Bind/dp/B01NBF ... 717&sr=8-3
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Re: Making Siim-Jim's....Beef Sticks

Post by Dave in AZ » Tue Nov 08, 2022 03:33

@sausagemaneric
Post above by @jcflorida is good info. I wouldn't use carrot fiber though, it binds up water but not much else, I would use it in a fresh sausage to get a lot of moistness, but it's not great for meat/fat. And it makes it waaay hard to shove farce into a snackstick.

Any of these nondairy binders will work fine, and a hard strong mix you can skip binder--binder does help overcome mistakes made with letting meat get warm, or weaker extraction. Potato starch, corn starch, tapioca starch, gelatin. Rusk, browned bread crumbs kinda, is used in England a lot. Central TX Beef bbq sausage uses bull flour, a mix of wheat, corn, rye, oat, and rice flours. I always use this when emulating TX bbq sausage. In Germany, egg white is used a lot.
Tons of options, I'd try corn starch 1st.
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