@papasop Those sausages looks terrific and I use the canning and pickling salt for everything in the house except for finishing.

@miller great looking jerky. Congrats

If the tenderloin was off too then the old casings probably are not be the problem. Maybe verify the temp with another thermometer a 10-20f swing can really make a difference and the other only thought is humidity.

@miller Yes if you want to smoke right away I would suggest using encapsulated citric acid or sodium erythorbate. If you aren’t really experienced with smoked meat stabilizer I would avoid it if you have access to the other two.

@dr_pain I’m with you. They’re making me hungry

@Miller havig never used Bear take my advice with a grain of salt but 8 minutes with wild game very well might not be enough. Time mixing is good in general but tons of things go into how long it will take. Things like amount of water added, quality of meat, TEMP of meat (that’s the big one) Temp of the room it is being mixed in and style of mixer (obviously) all of those things could be a culprit. Since you think it fatted out I am going to guess it could have been under mixed as like @Cabelas90 says it is highly unlikely that a home processor would overmix, or you may possibly have a problem with your smoker, though I find that less likely than protein extraction.

@miller I don’t see any reason that it wouldn’t work with other cured sausages, I have done it with summer, snack sticks and bologna and was happy with all of them. We cover it in https://meatgistics.waltonsinc.com/topic/1099/cured-sausage-205-advanced-thermal-processing but almost tangentially and you are right, it probably needs it own video where we show the entire process and not only that but also a comparison between this and doing it in the smoker the entire time. We will do the test from the same batch, just pull some out of smoker and finish in water, some will go in bags and some won’t and we will compare it to the sausage that stays in the smoker the entire time. We will also cover it a little tomorrow during our weekly Meatgistics live stream where the topic will be smoke schedules and the stall, it fits in nicely there I think. The Meatgistics Livestream is every Thursday at 3 pm at waltonsinc.com/live and, unlike our Waltons live stream, this one will focus far more on meat processing and not as much on giveaways and tangents!

Thanks for the advice. Just looking for the tang with out smoking all night.

@Jonathon , thanks

An emulsifying plate is really something only a commercial style grinder, usually a #52 or bigger I think, is going to have. To the best of my knowledge, they don’t make them for smaller grinders so you 1/8" is the best option and will work well. Sure gel is always a good binder when making any type of cured sausage like a hot dog, snack sticks, summer sausage, etc., as it adds proteins to the mix making protein extraction easier and it helps keep the moisture in the meat.

@miller Yeah, unless you are going for something very specific, like chorizo, 30% is the max fat you want to go with. Carrot fiber or sure gel is almost always a good idea with cured sausage, not as important with fresh but with cured sausage I always use it

@Jonathon I agree pork fat would be better, however the small place I have my elk processed doesn’t have pork to add. I generally have pork fat to add if I need additional. The casings I used were the tubed natural hog 35-38mm. Smoke schedule was 150 for 3 hours, 160 for 2 hours them 170 to an IT of 150. Using a Yoder pellet grill, it was also the first time using the Yoder for smoking, so me figuring it out may be part of it too. I gave some to a friend and he said it was really good, so it could just be me/the link I cut into for a snack.