Folks I am just new to the sausage and meat stick making art. I made some venison sausages earlier this fall with no problems. Other than being a little dry because I didn't put in enough pork in them, they were good.

Today the Wife and I made venison/beef meat sticks. We are using an electric meat grinder from Cabelas (Model 54-0708) and used what they call the snack funnel and collagen casings.

I found it was really hard to push the meat mix down thru the meat grinder (no blade just sausage stuffing ring). I had to really push down hard on the meat stomper and got tired. I am glad I only made 5lbs. We put some more water into our meat mixture but it was still hard, The Wife wouldn't let me put in more water.

Do any of your experienced meat snack artists have any idea why it was so hard to get the mixture thru the meat grinder and into the snack (pepperette) casings? I personally think we needed more liquid.

Thanks,