Hey guy’s, I have the exact opposite problem most people have. My sticks were a little to wet. First of all I will explain all the details of the process I used.
I mixed 18 lbs. of deer with 7 lbs. of pork shoulder, then I used seasoning and cure with 25 oz. of water, handmixed until sticky then added 3 lbs. high temp cheddar and encapsulated citric acid and mixed until even. I then stuffed 21mm collagen casings 6 feet long and hung in my smoker I just built. My smoker is a commercial stainless refrigerator that I removed all the foam and replaced with mineral wool and put an oven element in it that I control with an Auber instruments PID. The smoke is supplied by a smoke daddy cold smoke generator. I started at 100 degrees for one hour to dry the casings and then put a big cast iron skillet in for a water pan with 4 automotive sponges sticking half out of the water. Then took the heat to 125 for and hour and then 150 for an hour and then 175 and in 4 1/2 hours they were at 160 so I pulled them and ice bathed them until the got down to 50 degrees, then hung them back up for 4 hours. Oh and I stapled the ends of the sticks after stuffing and the damper on the smoker is a 3” pipe which was barely cracked. So I guess I’m wondering if the relative humidity was too high because of all the sponges or did I not mix long enough to get enough protein extraction? Any comments would be greatly appreciated if you’ve ever had this problem thank you in advance for your response

Also I’m planning on trying to make a short YouTube video on everything I did because I haven’t seen a good one on how to go about making A smoker from a commercial refrigerator I mean as far as removing the foam and taking it apart and such. It might take me a while but I will definitely put it back on here so if you guys want to watch it you can.