Hello everyone, I'm looking for suggestions on venison trail bologna. I made my first batch a month ago out of last years deer. I mixed 4.5 pounds with .5 pound of pork sausage for fat content and cooked in my smokehouse at 230* until IT was 165*. I know that is high but I couldn't get my temp lower, a problem I am researching in another category on this fine forum. When I got my sausage out of the ice water and removed the casing it was covered in grease even tho it tasted fine, consistency was a bit soft. So how do I harden it up a bit and lose the grease? Now I've learned a bit since this experiment, alot from this forum and my plan for next time is to make sure my meat mixture is about 80:20 fat since I remembered later last year's deer had fat mixed in at the processor. So I'm thinking that me mixing in extra fat and cooking it too high too early may be the root of all my problems. Now not to pile on too much, I've noticed some folks only cook until an IT of 152* is reached, any thoughts on that? I also planned to let them bloom this time, I hadn't heard of that the first time I tried. Could I have fixed my own problem? Just wanted to pick everyone's brain before I ruined some new deer. Thanks in advance everyone!