Hog and sheep casings for stuffing sausages


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It is impossible to match the quality of natural hog or sheep casings. After they are cleaned they are placed in drums with salt and their life at refrigerator temperatures is indefinite. They can be used for almost any product. The biggest advantage of using natural casing is that they shrink equally with the meat and thus are great for making dry or semi-dry salami or sausages.

If we used synthetic casings for those applications, the meat inside would loose its moisture and the inside diameter of the sausage will become smaller, but the casing would remain the same. The result will be a shriveled sausage, not appetizing at all.

The main reason that commercial manufacturers cannot use natural casings is the fact that they are not uniform and have a different diameter, texture and length. The meat plant even knowing the length of the sausage, cannot precisely estimate the weight of meat it contains and by the same token cannot arrive at the correct price. And you cannot run a business when no two samples are alike.

That leaves their use to smaller butchers or sausage makers and it is the preferred choice for a home producer. The other advantage is that they are very pliable and conform tightly with the meat. When smoking, the sausage looses its moisture (weight) and becomes smaller in diameter but the casing will follow and will adapt its diameter, too. Another advantage is that they are edible and you don’t even feel them when eating a well made smoked sausage.

The diameter of natural casings is measured in millimiters and they come in a bunch, called hank, of the same more or less size.

Hog size casings are anything from 32 - 42 mm and are used for medium size sausages like Polish Smoked Sausage, about 35 mm.

Lamb casings are softer and smaller, about 22 - 28 mm, and are used for smaller diameter sausages like “Kabanosy” or breakfast links.

The bigger the casing is the more meat can be stuffed into it which is faster and more economical. Don’t be preoccupied too much by the size of the casing, as this has nothing to do with the flavor of the sausage, which will remain the same even if we stuff our meat to five different diameter casings.

The natural casings are an ideal casing for a home sausagemaker though they require some experience to separate them when they get entangled what may be sometimes frustrating. The same applies to washing and stuffing. After the first sausage session they become easy to work with and are always ready to be used at a moments notice as they last almost for ever.

The commercial sausage kitchen will use pre-flushed casings that cost only slightly more and are faster to work with but have a much shorter life (30-40 days) even when refrigerated.

Natural casings are usually packed and stored in salt and have to be rinsed on outside and flushed out with water inside. Then they should be left in a water filled container over night in the refrigerator. That removes more salt from the casings and makes them softer and easier to work with when stuffing. After stuffing any remaining casings should be packed with canning salt and stored at 40-45 F (refrigerator) where they will last indefinietely.

The gradual rising temperature in the smoker will prevent casings from hardening up.

Here technology plays the dominant role and everything is made to maximise profits.

Casings are painted in difeerent colors, smoke flavor can be added to its outer surface, some are edible, some not, some edibles can be smoked, others cannot, it's almost like laundry in a washing machine, it takes time and effort to separate all those pieces. It takes some time to figure out which casing can be applied for different use, unlike a hog casing which is almost universal.

We are not going waste too much of our time on product that we do not recommend to be used by a home sausagemaker, but we feel that the chapter will not be complete if we don’t cover them as well.

Collagen casings are made from animal products such as cattle hides, they require little preparation, come in uniform dimensions on easy to handle rolls and require refrigeration. As such they are a natural, edible and tender casing but their main advantage is their uniformity and strength. The high speed stuffing and linking machines use collagen casings producing larger volumes of sausages in less time and that amounts to higher profits.

They come in variety of shapes and colors from 14-45 mm and different lengths about 20 ft long. Some are straight, some curved, some can be smoked and some not. They are more expensive and they require refrigeration. Most collagen casings are used in production of fresh sausages but there are also stronger casings that can be hung on smoke sticks and smoked.

Plastic or cellulose can be made in any color, imprinted with a logo or text when desired, they are strong but not edible. Red colored plastic casings are used for bologna, white for liverwurst, and clear or brown for other sausages. Plastic casings are commonly used in the manufacture of skinless hot dogs and frankfurters and the reason we don't see them is that they are removed during last stages of production.

Synthetic-fibrous casings are popular for making larger sausages like salami, summer sausage and bolognas. They are inexpensive and very strong, they can be stuffed very strongly without breaking. The sizes vary from 2-5". They should be soaked in tap water for 30 minutes before using.