Venison Summer Sausage - not done?

[loveland]

Hey All,

Newb here that just got into smoking and also making summer sausage.  I had a bunch of venison that i made into some summer sausage here recently that came out with some interesting texture and i'm wondering what i am doing wrong so i figured i'd ask the experts. 

I made about 15 pounds of summer sausage using a mixture that was 1/3 pork, and 2/3 venison.  The venison was very lean.  For the pork, i used pork trimmings from a local meat market.  I would conservatively estimate that the pork trimmings were roughly 50% fat. If my math is right, that puts my mixture somewhere around 1/6 fat (~16%).  For the seasonings i used PS seasonings summer sausage.

For the smoking procedure, I did exactly as the PS seasonings called for: 1 hour at 100 degrees, 4 hours at 110 Degrees.  Then 180 Degrees until the internal temperature reaches 156.  Finally dunked in an ice bath for a few minutes after smoking.

The casings are pretty firm on the meat, and I am loving the taste and the seasonings of the meat.  However, the texture is what isn't satisfactory.  The texture is just slightly rubbery or jelloish.  It's not a nice firm piece of sausage like i'd expect.  It's definitely not bad either, and is still great to eat. Just a few people have made comments on it.

Is the fat content too high?  Did i not smoke these at a high enough temperature? ....

Thanks in advance!!

 

[driedstick]

Sounds like you did it all fine,,, just from your Jelloish comment I think too much fat?? do you have a pic so we can see a slice of it and that may help us,,, was this slice from the bottom end?? could have had a spike in temp and had a fat out??