No, it won’t ruin it. It will be fine. It may cause it to not have as long of a shelf life. Just make sure you smoke it or cook it to a minimum of 145 degrees internal temperature.
I usually take my wild game to 165 then immediately cold ice bath for 15 minutes. I sometimes dont use cure in wild game sausage snack sticks, etc because its a waste of money, within 2 days it will be devoured.

Randyman, you need to brine the halibut in a water based brine mixed with an acidic juice of your choosing. I use sprite and add real lemons to it for the acid. White fish needs to absorb water before smoking to give it moisture. The acid will help hold the moisture in while smoking. Smoke to a medium rare temp and it will turn out. Pineapples work well also and oranges are ok. depends on what flavor you like. Brine it for at least 8 hours so fish will absorb water. Water absorbtion is the trick for white fish. Good luck

skmeyer. LMAO! thats a great idea for christmas (shape of candy canes)

No, Just club members. I’m from Sweet Home, Oregon

Joe Hell, looks real good. A big glass of Va Piano cabernet would drink real good with that. Although pendelton will to.

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.

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.

I agree with Iamurscrappy.

I don’t think its a smoke ring cure (seems a little big for that). But Gosh it could be with being in smoker that long without a good mixing of the cure. Strange one!!!
I they were were my sausages I couldn’t handle it and would cut all them open to see if all did it. Then I would do another identical batch making sure all ingredients were in and measured correctly and mixed well. But that’s just me.

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.

skmeyer How long was it exposed before the off color happened. Sometimes when cured meat is open to light and oxygen it will turn a grey/brown color because the light and oxy will create a nitrite (metmyoglobin) But it takes a bit to turn color. Kind of like when lunch meat turns that grey color on the outside. Its harmless. It could be you didn’t get a good mixing of the cure and or binder or the eca. And you did use a bit to much cure and binder. Also, venison is temperamental. I’ve had it do weird things when mixing with other meats for no apparent reason. Venison will also turn color faster than other meats when exposed to light/oxy (not sure why it does).

Adding more water for humidity is good and should help shorten the time in getting internal temp up. Maybe check your temp gauge of smoker. But at 175 it will take a long time to reach 160 because the difference is not high enough to heat up meat very fast. I skip the 175 and go from 150 to 200 and takes about 2 hrs to get internal temp from 130 to 155/160.

Moistiestdrip Oh man that looks good. I can almost taste it. I just got done with a batch of straight Elk summer sausage with the H summer sausage seasoning
and added ground mustard and cayenne.

My next batch is gonna be Jalapeno flavored with cheddar cheese

Perfect, glad it all came out great.

Also, I dont like using carrot fiber binder with wild game. Wild game needs help with protein extraction because it has very little fat content. Sure gel binder is much better.

how much meat and how much water did you use in the mixing? Did you use water for humidity while smoking?

Frenchie, best meat is whatever taste you prefer. I prefer pepperoni with just beef but I do like it with other meats also. I generally will use pork as a filler for more fat content mostly in wild game (deer elk only have a fat content of approx 4% which is very low for smoking sticks and such). Either way, straight beef, straight pork or mixed together will be good as long as the spices are to your liking.

Amount of sure cure = 1/4 teaspoon per lb of meat (1 1/4 teaspoons for 5 lbs). Amount of sure gel binder = 2 teaspoons per lb of meat (3 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon for 5 lbs).

I like my pepperoni spicey.

frenchie, you need to use a binder for sure.
Also you need to ice bath for a minimum of 10 minutes after pulling. Water with lots of ice (the colder the better). I use to think that binder and ice bath were a waist of time. But I learned my lesson long ago. Sure Gel binder and ice bath will help you tremendously. Your fat content is fine, you can do much leaner than that and turn out moist, snappy and good. Just need to figure out the correct cooking method. Hint:
dont cook to long, with that small of sticks it dont take much to get them ready to pull.

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.

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.

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.