Oh… I ground the pork fat and the venison at the same time. 2 chunks of venison, 1 chunk of pork, back and forth…

Yes… sure cure and sure gel binder. The venison and pork fat were both still partially frozen when I ground them. First through the large course plate, then again through the small plate. (Not sure of sizes, but these are the plates i normally use for summer sausage). I probably should have put the meat back in the freezer before seasoning but i was pressed for time. I mixed by hand for 14 or 15 minutes. I also think I might have added to much water. The video said 2 quarts for wild game 2 pints for fatty pork. I put in 1 quart and about another cup. I mixed until it got tacky and then mixed some more. The meat seemed soupy to me but the video said that would be ok.
The shriveling occurred before I bumped the temp up. I was using a digital thermometer with a probe, when the temp stalled for a couple hours, I suspected the temp might be reading inaccurately so I opened the door to confirm with a dial thermometer. The digital was accurate but the sausage was already shriveling.
Another thing that bothered me was the casings… these had perforations for some reason. I e never used perforated casings before and seemed like I was losing a pot of moisture through them. Did I have the wrong casings? The other fibrous casings in the catalog said you were supposed to poke them anyway.

After letting the sausage cool in the fridge over night… I’m throwing it all away. What a waste. Any flavor is overpowered by saltiness, the texture is just plain gross. I consider it inedible. I wouldn’t feed it to my dogs.

This is not the first time I’ve made summer sausage, but it is the first time I’ve used Walton products. Never had a batch this bad before. I guess I’ll go back to the seasoning and castings I used to use.

First time using waltons products. Made a 25 lb batch of summer sausage with the H summer sausage seasoning, sure gel cure and binder. 16 lbs of lean venison and 9 lbs of pork fat.
Took a long time to get to 160 degrees. I had to bump up the temp to 185 after the internal temp stalled at 147 degrees. Took 13 hours to finish. The sausage ended up shriveled, oily, and really salty. I’ll probably end up throwing it all away.