ace202 I have a similar set up and this works fine, instead of a hotplate I use an Amazn tube for my cold smoking and it works well. I use this to primarily smoke cheese, chili peppers, salt, etc. good luck.
One other thing you may want to try is to stuff the casings as full as you can, once you have achieved your target temp I would put them in an ice bath as quickly as possible to get the internal temp down, you want to stop the cooking process.
Hope this helps.
looking at some of the questions about stuffing snack sticks got me to thinking. For years I have used my grinder to grind the meat for the process and then mix and stuff right away. The stuffer was hard to turn but not impossible, I purchased a 20 electric LEM stuffer a few years back and it just doesn’t have enough power for the snack sticks. I do have a buffalo chopper and was wondering if I used that instead of just grinding it and adding a bit of water to the mix if it would be easier to stuff. has anyone done this?
