How Long to Smoke Snack Sticks: The Step-Up Schedule

Short answer:

Two numbers run the whole cook: the temperature inside the meat and the real temperature inside the smoker. The schedule only works if the smoker is actually running at the temperature you set. If it runs hot, it overcooks the sticks and melts the fat out of them, and you end up with greasy, crumbly sticks no matter how well you followed the clock. So put a probe in the meat, put a second probe at the grate, step the heat up gently, and never push the smoker past 175°F to hurry them along.

What is the snack stick smoke schedule?

This is the schedule the cooked snack sticks in the DeepWoodz library use: First Cut Sticks, Ember Jack Sticks, Fireline Jack Sticks, Honey Smoke Trail Sticks and Bayou Burn Sticks. All of them are cured with Cure #1 and stuffed into 19–21 mm sheep casings.

The times below are approximate. Smoker temperature and internal temperature are what count.

Stage	Smoker temp	About how long	What it does
Bloom	Room temp	1–2 hours	Hang the stuffed sticks until the casings feel dry to the touch
Dry	130°F (54°C), damper or vents open	1 hour	Dries the casing surface before smoke goes on
Smoke	150°F (66°C)	2 hours	Colour and smoke flavour
Finish	175°F (79°C) max	Until 152°F inside	Cooks the sticks through. No fixed time; the probe decides
Cool	Off the smoker	Promptly	Cold shower or ice bath optional; room temp or cold outdoor air works too
Firm up (optional)	Fridge or a cool, dry spot	A few days	For sticks softer than you like

One recipe moves a number on purpose. Honey Smoke Trail Sticks take heavy smoke for 2–3 hours at 150°F, because the BBQ spice profile can stand up to more wood. Everything else is the same.

Notice the last stage has no time on it. How long the finish takes depends on your smoker, the weather, how full the smoker is and how thick the sticks are. The clock moves. The finish line doesn't.

Should I go by time or temperature?

Temperature. Always. The clock is only there to tell you when to move to the next stage. It never tells you the sticks are done.

• Internal temperature decides when you pull them. 152°F in the thickest stick, measured with a probe.
• Smoker temperature decides whether they come out right. Every stage on the schedule assumes the smoker is actually at that number.
• The dial is not the smoker temperature. USDA's cooking guideline for meat processors warns that setting the oven to a target temperature does not mean the product reaches it, and every smoker has hot spots and swings. Put a second probe at grate level next to the sticks and trust that over the display.

If the sticks are running slow, let them run slow. Turning the smoker up past 175°F to catch up is how good batches get ruined.

Why step the heat up instead of going hot?

Because the stick has to do three different things, and each one wants a different temperature.

• Dry first. Smoke wants a dry surface. A wet casing attracts soot and tar and turns darker. His hot-smoking method starts by drying the surface with the draft fully open to clear moisture out of the smoker, and it warns that the smoker itself has to be dry inside.
• Smoke while it's still moderate. Colour and flavour build in the middle stage.
• Then cook it through gently. Fat starts to melt at 95–104°F, and taking sausage past 170°F internal hurts its quality. A slow climb gets the centre to temperature without cooking the fat out of the outside.

That's also why the finish is 175°F and not 152°F. Meat runs behind the smoker. The gap is roughly 25 degrees, depending on diameter. That's why the finish stage sits above the pull temperature, and why the cap matters: crank the smoker to close the gap faster and the outside pays for it.

Low and slow has a limit on the other end too. USDA's cooking guideline for processors recommends the product spend no more than 6 hours total between 50°F and 130°F on the way up. The schedule above gets thin sticks through that range well inside the limit. Don't stretch the early stages for hours on end.

Cure is not optional here. Snack sticks spend hours in a warm, low-oxygen smoker, which is exactly where botulism grows. Cure is a must for anything smoked low and slow. Every cooked stick in the library uses Cure #1 at 0.25% of the meat weight, locked in the app. New to cure? See How Much Cure #1 Per Pound of Meat.

What about the Landjäger? Why is its schedule different?

Tree Stand Landjäger is a different stick, so it gets a different schedule. It's stuffed into fatter 32–35 mm hog casings, pressed flat overnight, and dried down after cooking.

Stage	Temp	About how long
Press	Fridge, about 15 lb of weight on top	Overnight
Bloom	Room temp	1–2 hours, until casings are dry to the touch
Dry	130°F, damper open	1 hour
Smoke	150°F	3 hours
Finish	170°F max	Until 155°F inside (165°F for bear, wild boar or feral hog)
Cool	Off the smoker	Promptly
Dry down	Uncovered on a rack in the fridge	Until firm, wrinkled and about 30% lighter than stuffed weight, usually 4–7 days

Weigh the links right after stuffing and write the number down. That's how you know when it has lost its 30%. Like everything else here, the days are a guide and the weight is the finish line.

One stick is a different animal altogether. Ironwood Sticks is a fermented, dry-cured stick made with Cure #2 and a starter culture. It is never cooked, so none of the schedule on this page applies to it, and it must never be made with bear, wild boar, feral hog or cougar.

Do cheese snack sticks smoke any differently?

The schedule is the same. Ember Jack (cheddar) and Fireline Jack (pepper jack) run the identical 130 / 150 / 175°F steps to 152°F inside. Two things change.

• Use high-temp cheese in 1/4" cubes. It's made by heating the milk while it curdles, which gives a denser, drier cheese that holds its shape at smoker temperatures. Its makers rate it to about 400°F. Regular cheese melts out in the smoker.
• Fold it in last, by hand. Mix the meat until it's tacky first, then fold the cheese in without over-mixing.
• Cool them right away. These two recipes call for a cold shower as soon as they come off, so the cheese doesn't melt out while the sticks sit hot.

Can I smoke snack sticks in a pellet smoker?

Yes, if it can hold the temperatures. The schedule works on any smoker. The temperatures are what matter, not the fuel. The catch with pellet grills is the low end.

• Many pellet grills can't go as low as 130°F. Manufacturers list their Smoke settings anywhere from 160–180°F on one major brand to 180–210°F on another.
• They swing. One maker calls a swing of about 25°F either side of the set point normal, because the auger feeds in cycles. Another counts the grill as working right if the average stays within 15°F of the setting.
• So measure it. Before you load meat, run the grill at its lowest setting with a probe at the grate and see what it really holds.

What if my smoker can't hold 130°F?

Know your smoker's real low end before the meat goes in. Then:

• The 130°F stage is there to dry the casings. The room-temperature bloom does the same job, so make sure the casings are fully dry to the touch before they go on.
• If its lowest real temperature sits above 150°F but at or under 175°F, you can't run the 130°F and 150°F stages as written. Run its lowest steady setting, watch the chamber probe, and pull at 152°F internal.
• If its lowest real temperature runs above 175°F, it can't follow this schedule without going over the limit the recipes set, and that's where fat-out comes from.

Electric, gas or wood, the rule is the same: don't rely on the dial. Check what your smoker actually holds with a probe at the grate.

How do you tell when snack sticks are done?

A probe reading 152°F (67°C) in the thickest stick. Not colour, not firmness, not time. In a 19–21 mm stick, slide the probe in from the end so the tip sits in the middle of the meat, and pick the thickest stick in the smoker. A leave-in probe you can watch without opening the door saves you heat and time.

• The Landjäger comes off at 155°F.
• Bear, wild boar or feral hog: take it to 165°F and hold it there 3 minutes. Freezing, smoking and curing don't kill trichinella. Only heat does. The CDC is clear on it: curing, drying and smoking alone don't reliably kill the worms, and some strains in wild game survive freezing.

The same idea is behind the summer sausage internal temp guide: the thermometer tells you when it's done, not the clock.

Why did my snack sticks wrinkle or fat out?

Fat-out is grease on the drip pan and dry, crumbly sticks in your hand. The fat melted and ran out.

• Smoker ran hot. The most common cause, and often the dial said everything was fine. The recipes cap the smoker at 175°F because fat renders above it.
• The heat went up too fast. Step it, don't jump it.
• The meat got warm before it was stuffed. Keep it below 40°F through grinding and mixing. Warm fat smears and won't stay put in the smoker. More on that in why venison sausage comes out dry.

Wrinkling comes from drying. Sausage finished in the smoker loses more weight than sausage cooked in water and comes out more shriveled, and that a cold-water shower after cooking helps prevent shriveling. A cold shower is optional in our recipes, but if smooth sticks matter to you, that's the lever. On the Landjäger, firm and wrinkled is the goal.

What does "bloom" mean, and how should I cool them?

In our recipes, bloom is the 1–2 hour hang at room temperature right after stuffing, before the smoker. The casings dry until they feel dry to the touch, and the colour darkens slightly. Some older books use the word for the hang after cooling, when smoked sausage darkens and picks up shine. Both are real; on this page it means the hang before the smoker.

Cooling is simple: get them cool promptly. A cold shower or ice bath is optional. Plenty of people let them cool at room temperature, or outside in cold weather. USDA processor guidance says the stretch from 130°F down to 80°F is the one to get through fastest. Small sausages like franks cool in 5–10 minutes in cold water. The cheese sticks are the one place to use the cold shower every time.

How should I store homemade snack sticks?

• Refrigerate them. Cooked snack sticks are not dry sausage and are not shelf stable. Hot-smoked, cooked sausage belongs in the fridge or freezer.
• Eat an opened pack within about a week. USDA's sausage storage chart gives cooked sausage 7 days in the fridge once opened.
• Freeze the rest. Vacuum seal and freeze. USDA rates frozen cooked sausage at 1–2 months for best quality, and food kept frozen stays safe.
• The Landjäger is dried in the fridge and stored refrigerated or vacuum sealed and frozen. The recipe says it will keep a few days unrefrigerated in a pack in cold weather.

What size casing do snack sticks use?

The five cooked sticks use 19–21 mm all-natural sheep casings. The Landjäger uses 32–35 mm hog casings and gets pressed flat. Narrow casing holds very little meat per foot, so snack sticks eat a lot of it. Work out how much you need with the casing calculator before stuffing day.

DeepWoodz Smokehouse has a free Smoke Timer that runs a smoke in stages and alerts you when each one is up. You set the temperature and time for every stage, so you can match it to the recipe you're making. Keep a probe in the meat and one at the grate, and let the timer handle the clock.

Bottom line

Dry at 130°F, smoke at 150°F, finish at no more than 175°F until the thickest stick reads 152°F inside. The times are a guide. The probe in the meat and the probe at the grate are what you go by. Step the heat gently, never push past 175°F to hurry them, and cool them promptly. See every recipe on the snack stick recipes page.

Common questions