Jonathon We are not using a binder. Until you mentioned it, I really had not thought about it but it seems it would help.

We have recently made two different batches of summer sausage. Both were deer meat with 20% beef fat and some were made with 10% high temp cheese. Stuffed into 12" callogen casings. Cooked on our pellet grill starting out on the “smoke” setting (75-100), then 180, then 225 to internal temp of 160.

1st batch was 8 lbs. Took the anticipated time to cook base on our research, they were not put in an ice bath, and were not frozen. All looked great immediately but 1 of the sticks turned hard over the next week.

2nd batch was 18 lbs. This batch took longer to cook. They did have an ice bath. Most were frozen and all of them are hard and dry upon thaw.

Any suggestions on what we need to adjust would be greatly appreciated.