I also do Polish, Hungarian, Portuguese,

Nope - I won’t screw with this recipe - lol

See below for what to add to make mild spicy or spicy Italian Sausage

This is for one pound, so you will of course have to adjust.

Pork Butt - Looking for 80/20 - 70/30 (I prefer a little higher ratio of fat, but 80/20 works)

K Salt - 1TSP
Blk Pepper - 1/2 TSP
Reg Paprika - 3/4 TSP
Coriander - 1/2 TSP
Tyme - 1/4 TSP
Anise - 1/4 TSP
Gr Mustard - 1/4 TSP
Dry Parsley - 1/2 TBLSP
Fennel - 3/4 TSP
Sugar - 1TSP
Gran Garlic - 1 TSP
Oregano - 1/4 TSP
Dry Basil - 1/4 TSP
Nutmeg - 1/2 TSP
Marjoram - 1/4 TSP
Water - 1/8 Cup (I end up adding just a bit more)

All seed should be ground except coriander (if using seed) and fennel. These should be crushed slightly (for lack of a better term) or pulsed a time or two in a spice grinder. If I have coriander seed and always with fennel seed, I will slightly roast first on the stove top just until I smell the difference - DO NOT BURN), before the crushing or pulsing of the coriander and or fennel seed

My Kick-Up the Heat blend - Per Pound

I use this for any sausage or when making my own burger from Chuck or my favorite burger using Brisket

For Mild Spicy - 3/4 TSP of Crushed Red Pepper, 3/4 TSP of Cayenne and 1/2TSP of White Pepper
For Spicy - Just double up on the Crushed Red Peppers, Cayenne and White Pepper

This is also my blend to make any spicy type of sausage or burger.

My specialty though is my Italian sausage, both mild spice and spicy. After trial and error, I have created a spice blend that I can’t envision changing. My brother and son love it so much, they tell me to just make it and patty it up. I also think I have come up with what I believe is the proper 3 spices and amounts for making mildly spicy and spicy sausages.

Oh, here is a good reference you might have: chicken wings. The salt and vinegar rub ones are just citric acid. The lemon pepper ones are citric acid with lemon flavor. But BBQ, Teriyaki, cajun, and buffalo don’t have any citric acid. So, just think about how you like those flavors?

What is your spice mix or recipe?
(P.s thx for your question, I’m sitting here today trying to decide on what meat sticks to make, so enjoying the subject!)

ECA adds a sharp taste (twang) sensation like a hard or genoa salami without curing overnight or a couple of days
It is optional and some don’t like the taste in their meat products

I will double grind in the evening, cover and mix in seasoning etc. the following morning

1. Meat grind with any mixing at all will thicken up overnight in fridge, making it harder to stuff for small sticks and lrobably needing more water.
2. If you’re gonna let it sit overnight, many would want to make use of that time and have it curing, which means salt and cure#1 in there. That will thicken it though due to the protein extraction you expressed during mixing, bonding up.
3. If you’re gonna mix grind with anything and let it sit, might as well add spices also to let them blend and flavour.
4. If you don’t use a cure accelerator like sodium escorbate, vitamin C, or the small portion of exposed acid you get with even a gentle ECA mix, then you need your cure to sit overnight… which thickens the meat grind. You can let it sit as chunks and grind in morning though.
5. If you DO use an accelerator, you definitely want to mix everything and stuff right then, not next day.
6. If you DO use an accelerator, then like NDKoze said you can just mix and stuff the next day and not deal with the grind setting up. I don’t trust Encapsulated citric acid that you’re doing all you can to keep from reacting with meat, to be a good cure accelerator-- I would also use some SE or a ground 1000mg vitamin C tablet per kg of meat. The ECA isn’t really an accelerator except in so much as the encapsulation actually fails, then it does a bit.

I usually add all that up and decide to mix it all, use vitamin C accelerator, and stuff right then.
However, if I still wanted to mix one day but stuff the next, like you said, then your plan of adding liquid and ECA next day is good, but I would add cure#1 the night before to get full use of it. I would add some of the liquid with spices and cure mixed into it, to help them spread evenly, like was mentioned above also. And then I would expect to use more liquid the next morning to get it loose enough to stuff, like samspade said. I would add the ECA at very end very gently, stuff, then smoke.

When I get started late, I go thru your question every time, “if I don’t want to stay up late finishing this, what should I mix in tonight?” That supposed degradation of the bind from sitting at length on ECA, vs. remix the next morning and break up a lot of the bind that happened, is a hard call. Let us know what you did, and how you felt about the texture when done, will you? I could use the feedback too! Good luck!