Venison Sausage

Last year when we were making sausage my friend had wanted me to make Venison Sausage. Unfortunately we moved back to California and I was never able to try it. This year I was determined to make some, and luckily my friend had some (50 lbs!) venison meat for me. Two nights ago we stuffed the first batch, but had a few problems with the casing bursting. Also I didn't have a very good meat to fat ratio and the sausage came out a bit dry. My parents were the guinea pigs and had poached the sausage, and while they liked the flavor, they noticed it was a bit dry. Today was the second batch, so off I went to Tim's (see last years sausage post) and they were all out of pork fat! I asked the butcher what else I could use, and he said if I was going to smoke the sausage it's better to use beef fat, as pork renders slower and you end up with all the fat at one end of the sausage. I bought 1 lb of beef fat to go with my 4 lbs of venison (I'm hoping an 80/20 mix will not be so dry). After grinding it and mixing it up, I made a little patty to try and it tasted pretty good. Next I got the stuffing horn all greased up and ready for the casing. Got the casing on without too much effort, and began to stuff. After what happened the last time, we decided to twist off each link as we made them, so if one blew it didn't ruin the entire batch. Luckily this time we only blew one casing. Got the sausage drying on a rack in the fridge, and tomorrow morning we are going to make one more batch. Then it will be time to smoke them (the last batch I smoked a couple of links, but left them on for too long, so they turned into jerky sausage LOL). I bought 2 chunks of walnut and 2 chunks of pecan to smoke with (walnut is supposed to be good with game, but you need a mild wood to go with it). Fingers crossed that I don't overcook this batch!!
Next for the KitchenAid are my BF's famous snickerdoodles, which he is making for the North Idaho Fair the end of August... Stay tuned!