cdub, nice work brother. I can almost taste them.
PapaSop, I read your post (with a beer of course). Now I’m drinking beer with a bag full of jerky on the back deck.

binder does help with the casings setting correctly with the meat. Without the binder its hard to control the casings (sticking to meat, not binding to meat at all, chewey casings, casings coming off after freezing, etc. But I think the ice bath contributes to casings forming correctly or not a lot of the times. I’ve found that you need to put sausage in ice bath immediately after pulling and the colder the ice bath the better the casings turn out. I use lots of ice and leave in ice bath for at least 20 mins. If I skip the cold ice bath and use water with no ice or no ice bath at all then problems occur.

Halibut was real good. Brine = 1/2 gallon water, 16oz lemon lime sprite, 2 squeezed lemons with pulp and 1 lime squeezed with pulp, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup salt, rosemary, sage, and garlic powder. In fridge over night then rinsed and patted dry then sprinkled with A Cajun’s Life mesquite BBQ rub. In smoker for 30 mins with smoke at 150 and 2 hrs at 250 and done. 4" long x 2 inch wide x 1.5 thick. Tasty and moist. Cooked to rare to med rare.

I agree with cab90 on the meat needs to be cold when grinding and the grinder needs to be cold (i put my auger, tube, holding container in freezer night before and wrap ice packs around grinder to keep cool). But, are you sure its actually fat out or could it be they are just dry and shrunk up? I ask because that is a long time to smoke/cook snack sticks to an internal 165. what diameter snack sticks? Try 1 hr at 140 and 1hr at 150. Also, I would not dry at 120, just bring to room temp for 1hr, then roll smoke at 120 when you put in smoker (some will disagree but thats ok). Keep smoking and trying different methods, all smokers are different.

With dinner a good dark spicey Cabernet sauvignon, Malbec, Zinfandel. A petite Sirah works well also. After dinner a good Port or late harvest wine. Just sitting around Any stout or porter and/or many other beers as long as its not coors light. Hot summer day its a gin and tonic with lemon.

Frenchie
Interesting! Tell us what methods, meats and cook times you used and then we can help. My first thought is that you packaged and froze sticks before they were cold but I have know idea. Give us some info on meat, grind, ingredients, mixing and smoking/cooking.

I agree with akdave. Its a little strange that half the meat is red and other is grey. I would think all would be same color. You did say your mixer was over full. I wonder if it didn’t get mixed in all the meat.

I agree with Iamurscrappy.

Fresh for me. Better texture flavor and appearance. Sometimes I will sear them first which gives a twist on the flavor. You can sear them with fresh garlic cloves also (good added flavor). I let them cool before adding to mix.