Smoke powder? Well, that gives you another piece of equipment to ask for next Christmas or for your anniversary. Honestly, your jerky will be fine with the smoke powder, but you’ll have to take some C-R-A-P from guys like me. Ha!

Also, I have a Cuisinart mixer that’s a Kitchen Aid clone. Bowl is plenty full with 5# of meat/fat/water, but it does a dandy job. I run mine on setting 1 (slowest), using the flat paddle rather than the dough hook. Takes me 10-11 minutes to get the stickiness I like.

Lube up that stuffer and tube because it takes all kinds of pressure to force that meat into a 19mm casing, which is what I use also.

For years I smoked butts on an electric bullet-style smoker. It had a water pan that I used and my understanding is the water pan wasn’t so much to add humidity as it was to help control the heat. That smoker had no temp controls at all, you just turned it on. Apparently the water kept things from getting too hot. Some guys put sand in the water pan, but I always ran water. Don’t waste your money on adding wine, beer, spices or whatever, just plain tap water.

When I got my first electric “box smoker” about two years ago, I had to shift gears because the box smoker is sealed tight and doesn’t need water at all when smoking butts.

Haven’t used a propane smoker, but I’d try a butt using no water, temp at 225, and don’t spritz. Just use your remote thermometers and try to keep the temp at 225-240. Butts usually stall at 160-170 for me. An 8-pounder takes me 12-14 hours at 225. I do rub my butts the night before if I remember it. If I don’t, then rub 'em right before the smoke. I wouldn’t swear it makes much difference.

Don’t be opening the door, unless you absolutely have to in order to add more wood chunks. Close it up, watch your meat/smoker temps and don’t worry about it. As others have said, butts are very forgiving.

Well, ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy36fKlIwD0s it turns out, newer refrigerator/freezer combos get all confused if they are in an unheated garage and the temp falls below about 20 degrees for several days. The thermostat is checking the fridge temp, not the freezer temp, so if the fridge is cold enough, the compressor never kicks on. So, instead of keeping your freezer around 0 or a bit above, the compressor never kicks on and your frozen food slowly thaws. Might not be a problem, but very well could be, and you’d never know your “frozen” food had thawed to 35-40 and then was refrozen when the garage temp got back up to the 30-35 range. Who knew? Here’s a good video that explains it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy36fKlIwD0

Jonathon You’re exactly right. If I hadn’t chosen that particular time to go get that sausage, the outdoor temp would have gone back up, the refrigerator would have warmed and kicked on the compressor, and that sausage would again be hard as a brick, as expected. I’d never have suspected thawed meat because outdoor temps were running 10-20 degrees. I think there was just enough salt and fat in the sausage to cause it to soften while the solid-muscle venison all around it was still frozen hard. Point is, if you have a refrigerator/freezer in an unheated area, you need to be aware of this possibility. Regular freezers, both chest and upright, do not have the same problem.

Jonathon Thanks! On these sticks I’m running 4 pounds of lean venison and adding 1 pound of bacon ends, so 20% fat, plus Sure Gel and then ECA at the end of mixing. I think you’re right that much of the solution could be simply stuffing the casings just a bit tighter. On this last batch I was using a new manual stuffer by myself, so I was cranking with one hand and tensioning the casing with the other. Since blowouts mean stopping and tying off the two ends, my subconscious probably caused me to let the casing slip off the horn a little too freely.

I’m glad you agree that my idea of rotating the snack sticks on a dowel isn’t whacko.

For fresh breakfast sausage from venison I’ve used Holly, #110 and Maple, and all are excellent. I add pork fat to get 25-30% fat. For snack sticks the buddies who seem to consume most of my snack sticks really love Willie’s. High temp pepper jack cheese and Willie’s makes a killer snack stick.