Well, Don’t know you and have not been around here very long at all to have followed your journey! Your story is very inspiring and I appreciate you sharing! I am in need of a lifestyle change and reading your story and others has me pointed in the right direction! Stay safe!

Wow, they both look great! I will get there one day!!

Cabelas90 I understand what your saying. Texture wise this batch is the 1st with this issue. I generally mix and season then into the fridge. Next morning, add ECA stuff and into the smoker. Process wise the only changes were the meat and the seasoning.
I used 3 pounds of venison burger approx 90/10 and 2 pounds of ground chuck 80/20. Previous batches were all ground chuck 80/20. Could my mince have been to lean?

Cabelas90 said in What have I done wrong?:

What did you do different in this batch vs the other 4-5 batches as i assume they turned out ok?

The 5 batches I have made were ok but not the flavor profile I am after. This was the first time I have tried this brand and Blend. Other than the seasoning I added the ECA trying to get a little tangy flavor.

Jonathon Thanks for your opinions and knowledge helping a knucklehead like me out.
I have not tried Willies or any Excalibur seasoning blends yet! I have been buying snack stick and summer sausage from the Gentleman that I have used for years that processed my Venison. Unfortunately he retired and has closed up his shop! I tried to obtain his recipes but he wasn’t wanting to share that info!
My Ice bath was indeed an Ice bath. Once i removed them from the bath, they sat on the countertop on cooling racks. Once they were dry to the touch for the most part I cut them to length and put them into brown paper sacks in the fridge for 2 days. Vac packed and frozen at that point.
My cooking process started around 95 to 100 degrees for nearly 2 hours until the sticks felt dry to the touch. At that point the temp was bumped up to 120-130 and added smoke to the cook for 2 hours, 150 and smoke for an hour and then to 170 until they hit 155 IT. I did not have any water in the drip pan and the vents on my smoker were wide open the entire cook.
In my response to Cabelas90 above I stated that the meat and seasoning were mixed and refrigerated. ECA was added the next day prior to stuffing.
Very little fat rendered out during the cook. The finish stick appears to have a good bit of fat in it. If you squeeze and roll a piece between your fingers the fat is still there. I would not say these were dry at all. My picture above shows a cut piece and if you expand the photo it shows pretty well.
I used 3 pounds of Venison burger roughly 90/10 and 2 pounds of ground chuck at 80/20 for this batch.
Again I appreciate all your help as well as the others here.

Cabelas90 said in What have I done wrong?:

39Buick I see now the Erythorbate was in your mix. I really dont think running the 2 together will hurt anything but holding to smoke with ECA in it is very risky! Not make you sick Risky just poor product risky.

I mixed my meat and seasoning blend for nearly 30 minutes by hand. took a bit longer than 30 minutes because my hands were hurting from the cold. I had a good sticky blend and looked to have a good protein extraction. I then refrigerated the mix until the next morning. Next morning, added the ECA and gave it a gentle mix for maybe 5 to 10 minutes. Loaded the stuffer and filled 19mm collagen casing. At that point I started the cooking process.
Also once I had loaded the smoker and clean my mess up, I fried up the bit of meat from the bottom of the stuffer elbow and tube and noticed the texture issue in the sample. The patty itself felt dense and rubbery!
Perhaps its a bad batch of seasoning or something.

Can you mix a batch that contains Sodium erythorbate and let it sit overnight in the fridge without ill affects? Does Sodium Erythorbate react to ECA? Can you over mix your batch and cause issues such as this.
I honestly believe it is a chemical reaction or something. I filleted the casing off of a stick and the meat alone still has a rubbery feel and texture. I am so confused! haha!

craigrice said in What have I done wrong?:

did you ice water bath them after cooking to stop the cooking process
I did Ice bath them for 10 or 15 minutes.

Tex_77 said in What have I done wrong?:

Well the first problem is you didn’t get your seasoning from Walton’s!

Lol, you are probably right. Still have not found a good snack stick recipe or blend. Would love to have one similar to jack links flavor.

knifemaker3 said in What have I done wrong?:

Are they natural or collagen casings? Collagen have a tendency to be chewy no matter what you do. At least that’s been my experience.

These were collagen casings. The last of a bag I have been using that were fresh to me. meaning i bought them less than 30 days ago and have made 4 or 5 other 5# batches.

clubchuck said in What have I done wrong?:

I had this happen once, I attributed it to using some collagen casings that were almost a year old.

I would question the casing but have made other batches recently out of the same bag of casings and have not had this issue.

Recently started using this setup. I found the numbers in my smoker were not even close so using 6 probes lets me monitor several meats and several areas in the cooking chamber! Decent reviews and not a lot of money! My disclaimer: use of the app works well but their are no bells and whistles!

Inkbird IBT-6XS Bluetooth Wireless Grill Thermometer for Smokers，6 Probes Digital Oven BBQ Thermometer, Rechargeable Battery, Timer, Alarm for Kitchen, Food, 150ft Meat Thermometer for Grilling

Mike from Smiths Alabama.
Joined the group looking to learn and share ideas. I recently purchased a smoker and some tools to start making my own sausages and snack sticks and anything else meat related that comes along!
Looking forward to chatting with the group!

I cooked a 5 pound batch of snack sticks yesterday and they look and taste good but there is no snap to casing and they are very chewy and rubbery. I followed the recipe listed on the seasoning jar and also added some ECA prior to stuffing and smoking. I weighed the seasoning to 4 ounces and then changed the scale to grams and weighed the ECA to 16.9 grams.
During the cook i ramped up the temps from 100 to 170 over the course of 7 hours until they were measuring 155 on my inkbird thermometer.

Brianh Thanks so much for your help! I clamp my stuffer to the edge of the counter top and it is rock solid but it does take considerable effort to crank the handle using the smaller casings. I wouldn’t think it would be an engineering marvel to make the gear reduction system for these stuffers!

Little Baby Teddy I appreciate the help. I had read that on the product page. I was trying to determine if the gear ratio was different on the units with the gear case rather than the helical geared units. I have read posts where folks had done 16mm snack sticks and claim the stuffing process was effortless! This is not the case with my cheap little stuffer!

I have a question about stuffers in general. I have the 7# stuffer with the helical gears on top, inexpensive and does a nice job. However when doing smaller diameter snack sticks it become a struggle to rotate the handle to apply pressure to the mince. Do the two speed stuffers have some sort of gear reduction built into the transmissions?