question on casings natural vs fibrous vs collegen


 
Y

Yianni

TVWBB Fan
I am going to get started soon on experimenting with some charcuterie and I dread natural casings.

You may ask how do you dread them if you have not even started yet.

Well being Greek I have been around quite a few lamb preparations and I have had the job of "massaging" and hosing out intestines in the garden one too many times in my youth and its just one of those things I don't want to mess with voluntarily anymore.

So when I start my first things will be a pepperoni then hopefully graduate to a sopressata.

So what are the best alternatives to natural casings for these?

Dont bust my nuggets too much for not wanting to go natural it was a traumatizing childhood experience!
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thanks!
 
Collagen Casings Nothing wrong with them due to your aversion. Sources say they allow smoke to get adsorbed as well (instead of plastic ones).

They might "pop" a bit easier if overfilled as they are less stretchy.

I can't think of any reasons NOT to use them.
 
i understand your reservation. first, know that commercially bought casings are nicely cleaned, and probably quite a bit different that that which comes right off the animal.

if you prefer, artificial is fine as well (although i have never worked wirh it)

for cured sausages, i would suggest a diameter no smaller than 50mm, as they shrink during cure.
 
My limited experience with collagen casings has not been good. I bought some when I ran out of natural casings once to give them a try for sausages. They were less forgiving when stuffing, what a pain to form links with and they had the wrong "mouth feel" when grilled. They may be great for pepperoni or large solid muscle curing (haven't used them in those applications) but for sausages I'll never use anything but natural casings.

I will say they had some positive qualities: no soaking/rinsing needed and easy to get onto the stuffer tube.
 
I've only used collagen casings. Here are some positives: 1) You don't have to tie off the ends. You can just cut the lengths you want and the meat stays inside (though it pops out a tad); 2)texture is consistent and not tough, though a bit different than natural casings. Sometimes you can get a tough natural casing. 3) easy to store and work with. Never gets knotted. You can buy tubbed natural casing that eliminates the knot or binding.

Biggest negative is that they do pop if filled too much.
 
When you guys are talking collagen are you referring to edible collagen or non edible collagen?
Big difference when stuffing on the two. A saline solution works on the non edible ones and they hold up to the white mold whereas mold will eat through fibrous.
Cider vinegar helps to make naturals easy to handle as well.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Steve Carson:
Tell me more about this cider vinegar and ease of handling </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
It just reduces the slipperiness of the naturals and makes stuffing easier
 
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