Recipe:
7.5 lb final meat block of which 1480g venison, 400g pork fat, 900g ground beef 80/20, and 650 ml or so ice water. So 6.1 lbs meat plus the water to 7.5. I ended up using more water than expected, 23%.

• 159 g Willies seasoning
• cure#1 @ 2.5g/kg meat, so 2.78kg * 2.5g = 6.95 g
• binder, non fat instant dry milk @ 3% = 84g
• cure accelerator Ascorbic acid i.e. vitamin c, @ 0.1% so 2.8g or 2800mg or about 3 normal tablets, ground and mixed in some water to spread evenly AFTER CURE ALREADY MIXED IN! Don’t add with sodium nitrate in water, it will rapidly off gas the nitric oxide… add separate.
  

Mix the cure in some water before adding so you get good even distribution. Can do it with the spice mix, pour water blend over mixing meat.

I used a 6.5 qt kitchenaid mixer with beater blade. Dough hook was worthless. Too much meat for it, 5lb would have been OK. I ran on speed 2 for 4 or 5 minutes, holding spatula horizontal above meat to keep it forced down into bowl. Worked good, outstanding protein extraction. Added extra water due to how stiff/sticky the milk binder plus mixing made it, and not wanting to burn motor on Kitchenaid.

All meat almost frozen, barely thawed, separately ground about 3 to 4.5 mm I’d guess as deer was processed elsewhere and ground beef bought. Pork fat was 4.5mm, ground while frozen, from cap on boston butts. Meat mixed first 2 min with spices and cure, fat added with accelerator and mixed 3 or 4 more min. If using Walton’s 20 lb mixer, I would have gone more, but the Kitchenaid was incredible mix.

Stuffed in 16mm collagen casings from Walton’s, I loved them! Highly recommended, liked better than larger 19 or 21 mm size. Looked like commercial meat stick. However you need a true 10mm stuffer tube for these.

I have a 15lb stuffer from another company. Terrible design choice to use a 2 in stuffer tube base… not 2-1/8 in everyone else uses. No such thing can be bought, and company didn’t have smaller than 3/4in conical plastic. Bought 10 mm 54mm ie 2-1/8in base from smokehouse chef, ground down to 2in to fit.
– stuffing went well except for last 1/4" piston travel when another serious design flaw was revealed in stuffer. Had to jerry rig a seal. Wish I’d bought a Walton’s, but didn’t know about company at the time

Thermal Cook sched. Used a Thermoworks Smoke X4 for all temps, one probe for ambient, 3 probes in meat sticks one per rack level, center and edge.

1. Dry, 30 min in oven at proof setting, 120f with door open, convection fan on
2. Traeger grill, all sticks in 2 ropes on 2 levels. Smoke setting stabilized at 145 f ambient, less at start with cool grill.
   A. 1 hr 125 to 145 grill. Meat IT to 120.
   B. 2 hrs 145, IT to 133.
   C. 30 min 155, meat IT to 143.
3. Pulled meat at 141 to 143 internal temp.

Sous Vide
1.Cut meat sticks to 11.5 in to fit sideways in 2gal ziplocks.
2. Packed 1 deep, sealed ziplock around straw, sucked air out and finished seal. Pretty good vac seal! Filled just 2 bags, 1 stick deep for good thermal conduction.

3. Used an Anova pro sous vide 1000 w, cut a hole in the tray of a cooler to hold it.
   Got water to 172f by boiling 4 qt, adding to 5 qt hot tap water, boiling 4 more qt. Turned on Anova to hold 165f.
4. Placed 2 x 2 gal bags with sticks into water vertically using 2 cookie racks to hold upright. Burped the air bubble from top of each with a straw. Water pressure deflates bags good.
5. Cooked 30 min at 165 f. Internal temp went from 130ish where they had cooled during bagging, to 154 f. 10 more minutes gave 160f IT, I lowered sous vide to 160, held 5 more min for 45 min total.
   
   Ice bath.
   Dumped bags into ice water 15 min, IT 50 f.

Dry… dried on racks out of bags 30 min.
Package
Cut in half, vac packed.

Sticks plumped back up nice from the smoker, during the ice bath.