Venison smoked sausage and shrimp jambalaya. Turned out really good. Served with fresh green beans, salad and French roll. Cooked in cast iron Dutch oven.

Made a chicken & sausage gumbo for New Years Day. Has been a lasting family tradition since I was a kid growing up in Louisiana.

Happy New Year all!!!

After watching many videos and reading many post on this site, below is my snack stick plan. I welcome your feedback to make my first attempt a success. Thanks all!

Venison/Pork Snack Sticks
3# Pre-ground Venison 80/20 beef fat
3# Pork butt
Cube pork and ground venison (semi frozen)
Grind pork thru 3/8” plate
Mix pre ground venison & ground pork (put in freezer again if not ice cold)
Add Willies Seasoning (184g)
Add Sure Cure (6.8g) mixed with 8oz cold water
Add Sure Gel (40.8g)
Add smoke powder (6.8g)
(put in freezer again if not ice cold)
Grind thru 1/8” plate
Mix by hand for a long time to get good protein extraction (may use kitchen aid mixer)
Add ECA (27.2g) and mix again but don’t over mix
Divide into two 3lb batches
To one 3lb batch;
• Add dried jalapenos (6 peppers)
• Add high temp cheddar (5 oz for 3# meat)
Mix until evenly distributed
Add meat into my new Black Friday Walton 11lb stuffer
Use smallest stuffing tube
Stuff into 19mm collagen casings
Put in Excalibur Dehydrator with fan
• 1 hr at 125 degrees
• 1 hr at 140 degrees
• 2 hr at 155 degrees
• Move to oven at 175 degrees until internal temp of 160
Remove and put in ice bath
Dry on rack with fan circulating air
Refrigerate overnight
Cut to length and Vac seal
Re-wrap 11lb stuffer and put back under tree before wife gets home

Chicken liver 5 lbs
Pork 20 lbs
Bell Pepper 4 cups
Celery 4 cups
Onion 8 cups
Garlic 8 cloves
Kosher Salt 250 grams
Blk pepper 80 grams
Red pepper to taste
Paprika 80 grams
White pepper 40 grams
Thyme 40 grams
Bay leaves 6
Cube pork and rough chop veg, add liver
Add 80% seasoning
Overnight in frig
Cover with water and cook 3-4 hr til meat falling apart
Remove meat and vegetables with spider reserving liquid
Whip meat & veg with cake paddle in mixer ( or grind)
Add Fresh green onion (4-5 bunches tops only chopped)
Fresh parsley (4-5 bunches chopped)
Add 50% rice and continue blending just until evenly incorporated
Add about 1/3 to 1/2 liquid, should be very moist but sticking together
Taste and adjust seasonings
Stuff into casings

Happy Thanksgiving to my Walton family. Thanks for all the great post and answers to my questions as I get better at this hobby. This forum has a really a great group of men and women willing to help anyone!

Tried out my new Waltons stuffer on a small batch of venison & pork boudin today. Stuffer worked flawlessly. Flavor was dead on for boudin with the trinity, fresh green onion, fresh parsley and chicken livers. Great on a cackers with stone ground mustard and hot sauce, but will increase seasoning level about 20% next time.

Chef I worked for Sara Lee in their Jimmy Dean Foods division and was responsible for buying all of their seasonings and ingredients. There is no sage in the regular seasoning.

Experience? I have made venison breakfast sausage and summer sausage a few times but they both turned out very dry. I grill and smoke often and would like to get better at making sausages. Have a lot of venison that I need to process further.

Favorite snack or seasoning flavor? I love boudin, snack sticks, jalapeno cheddar smoked links and summer sausage.

Smoker? WSM 22.5 & 18.

That’s what I thought. I love my WSM, just not the right tool for this job. I see another smoker in my future. Will have to start laying the ground work with the wife.

I do something similar with my Excalibur seasonings if I do not use the entire bag. I just used a small strip of a textured vac seal bag inserted in the original seasoning bag to draw the vacuum. Works great!

If you want a little bit of the tang you can try their new product called smooth acid.

"Smooth Acid
When making cured sausages like Snack Sticks or Summer Sausage you will need to either add a cure accelerator (like Smooth Acid, Encapsulated Citric Acid, Smoked Meat Stabilizer, or Sodium Erythorbate), or if you do not add an accelerator you need to hold your meat for 12 hours after stuffing to allow the cure time to work. Some people find the tang or bite that is added by encapsulated citric acid to be too strong, for those people this is the best replacement for home use.

Features:
Similar function to Encapsulated Citric Acid with less “tang” added to the taste
Cuts the drying time
Produces a firmer sausage"

Worked fine for me.

You will have a very difficult time getting it into the casing after adding seasoning, mixing, getting protein extraction and freezing. IMO, stuff, then freeze and smoke later if you are short on time.

Happy 4th. Fire up those grills and be safe!

Great looking sausage and Recteq.

Wow, can’t plant here until May 15. I remember staggering my planting in Louisiana to spread out harvest. No need in IL.

Nice Job!

Those look awesome. You may have just given me the nudge I needed to knock out a batch of those this coming weekend.

That is exactly how Jimmy Dean Foods does it. Extruded, cut, through the cooker and/or blast freezer and off to packaging.

Wisconsin