Tried something different, used a brat recipe, the Owens Philly Cheese Steak one, to make stix. Did a 5 pound batch, carefully weighing out the mix from the 25 pound batch pack. Added teaspoon equivalent of cure #1, and I think most importantly, added 20 ounces of pepper jack high temp cheese. A 50/50 venison pork mix with sheep casings. The price of high temp cheese always caused me pain, but since I now have a butcher who will sell it at $5 a pound I'm feel more generous using it, and glad I increased it from a pound to 20 ounces on this one. 4 hours of smoke from AMNPS using hickory. Next time I might go 5 hours since this is a mild recipe and the extra smoke won't clash with other flavors.
This is a pretty mild mix even with the pepper jack. Have been experimenting to find a range of good stix recipes, from sweet to neutral to hotter. This mix is good with the cheese, but really needs to get to room temp before eating. That's true of most sausage I guess but I emphasize to folks to let the sausage warm up to room temp to get the full flavor.