Snack sticks have a metalic taste, but the same stuffing with no casing tastes fine?

[bigpig]

Smoked some sticks for 9 hrs and texture/flavor wise came out perfect, however, there is an off taste to the sticks. I also put a thin layer of the exact same meat in the smoker and it came out without that weird taste in the sticks. At a complete loss as to how this could happen.

 

[bigpig]

Would like to update in case this helps anyone in the future. Turns out my problem was the cheese. Used a sharp cheddar (those big Costco blocks) and what I perceived as metal flavor was just really sharp cheese. The reason the meat with no casing was fine was because the cheese melted on the surface, changing the taste.

Btw the cheese in the sticks (18mm and 21mm) worked great in terms of keeping its structure. Although I did keep it frozen until the point of stuffing

 

[pc farmer]

Thanks for the info.