www.sausagemaking.org

Okay, I made #25 of pork/venison snack sticks this past weekend. Previous batches all improved with a little drying (but I kept the added water to make them easier to stuff). But in the past after vacuum sealing them and freezing them the texture isn't as nice so I'd rather refrigerate instead.
I see these mass produced "meat" sticks in the grocery store at room temperature vacuum sealed and they have several months to expire. But those have additives with 17 syllables and requiring a PhD to understand.

So... if I vacuum seal them at the perfect water content (as far as texture, unknown AW%), how long to other people refrigerate smoked but not dried snack sticks?

I couldn't put a specific time on it, however I leave mine in the fridge until they're done. If i had to guess maybe 2 months before they're all gone.

I guess it would depend on how you made them. I don't ferment mine but use Cure#1 and hot smoke to internal temp.

Some recipes treat them more like a salami and ferment and age. Either way if they are cured correctly in some way then vac packed and stored in the fridge they should last a good while.

If no cure...all bets are off.

They had cure #1 and were hot smoked. I just know that unless things are truly dried they don't have an indefinite life span. I figure with the holidays they won't last long, but this is the biggest batch I've made so I wanted to know when I need to be on the lookout for fuzzies.

Thanks Dingo.