If you’ve ever wanted that deli style pepperoni you can slice for pizza, sandwiches, or a snack tray, but didn’t want to mess around with fermenting, this is a great one to make at home.

It gives you that familiar pepperoni flavor and texture without having to worry about fermenting, managing drying time, or dealing with the extra steps that can put a lot of people off making pepperoni at home.

I usually make this with ground beef, but this time I had plenty of ground moose on hand, so I went with an 80/20 mix of moose and pork. The pork adds the fat you need, and the moose brings a really nice rich flavor. I only made a 2 1/2 pound batch, so I adjusted the seasoning to match.

Before getting into the meat, I’ll mention the casings because I learned something useful. I used 55mm fibrous casings. The package said each one would hold around 1 3/4 pounds, but I found I could get closer to 3 pounds into one. The only issue was the full casing was too long for my smoker, so I cut it in half first. After that, I soaked the casings in lukewarm water, somewhere around 80°F to 100°F, to soften them up.

For the meat, I ran it through the grinder a second time using a fine plate. That finer grind helps give pepperoni that tighter deli style texture. Once it was ground, I put it back in the fridge while I cleaned the grinder. Keeping the meat cold really matters with sausage making, so anytime you have a pause, back into the fridge it goes.

Once everything was ready, I mixed in the cure, spices, and seasonings thoroughly. You want to mix until the meat gets tacky and sticky. A good test is to grab some in your hand and turn your palm downward. If it sticks there without falling off, it’s ready.

Then I put the meat back in the fridge again while I got the stuffer set up.

When stuffing the casings, I packed them as tight as I could. Since these are fibrous casings, they can handle it. Tight stuffing helps prevent wrinkled casings during smoking, and it also makes peeling the casing easier later on.

Once stuffed, I put the pepperoni in the fridge overnight. That gives the cure time to work and lets the spices settle into the meat. You can make it the same day if you use a cure accelerator like sodium erythorbate, but I prefer the overnight rest. I think the flavor comes out a little better.

The next morning I hung the pepperoni in the smoker at 130°F with the damper wide open for about an hour. The goal here is just to dry the casings before smoke hits them.

After that, I raised the smoker to 150°F, closed the damper halfway, and started smoking with maple. Maple gives a nice mild smoke that works really well with pepperoni.

About two hours later, the internal temperature had reached 130°F, so I raised the smoker to 165°F to keep things moving toward the finish temperature. In the end, I bumped the smoker to 175°F to get it across the line.

As soon as the internal temperature hit 152°F, I dropped the sausages into ice cold water right away. That stops the cooking and helps keep the fat from rendering out any further.

After about 20 minutes in the cold water, I set them on a rack to dry and then moved them into the fridge overnight.

The next day, they were ready to slice.

This version comes out medium hot. For some people, especially kids, it may have a little more kick than they want. If that’s the case, just cut the red pepper flakes and cayenne in half. If you like more heat, bump them up a bit.

That’s the nice thing about making your own. You get to decide exactly how you want it.

If you want a really good pepperoni without dealing with fermentation, this is a solid way to go. Slice it thin for pizza, chunk it for a snack tray, or eat it standing at the fridge like most of us do.

Give it a try.