The Brat and Banger experience

[BBQer]

Well it was my second time making sausage and the first trying to work with casings. Those things can sure knot up while trying to rinse them. The casings averaged about 12 feet each. 32-35mm hog casings. And I used a 1 inch stuffing tube.

The first one was very hard to get on the tube. The rest went on fairly easily right out of the bowl of soaking water, but I ended up with some water in the casings as they went on the stuffing tube - or air, or sometimes both.

Things went fairly well, but now I have a few questions. How do you keep that from happening?

When I twisted the links, then picked the length of links up, many would untwist. I alternated direction of twist each link. How do you keep that from happening?

When you cut them apart and cook them, how do you keep the ends from untwisting and the contents from protruding out as they cook?

One last question for now. Somewhere I read (maybe in the recipes) to hang them until the casings dried and then refrigerate. What is the reason for doing this?

Anyway I had fun making about 25 lbs. of brats and bangers. Used four Bratwurst recipes from Len Poli's website - the Bramberg, Nuernberg, Swiss and Wurtenberg styles. And the Bangers 2 recipe from this website.

A couple of pictures of my efforts.

[Paul Kribs]

BBQer

It is usual to get a little water inside the casings, it is unavoidable if you flush them through properly,. This I regard as a good thing as it helps the casing slip off the nozzle whilst filling. The way to avoid getting air pockets in the sausages when filling is to ensure that when you fill the mix into the body of the filler to take extra time to compact the mix before trying to stuff the casings.
I think you might be slightly over-stuffing the casings, hence they want to come undone, and this would also be why the filling wants to escape when you cook them. Take a look at the 'linking' video in the sausagemaking section of my website. This will give you an idea on how compact the casings should be. You need to understuff to facilitate linking, whether it be in links of 3 or 1's. You can then cut your links and the ends will remain closed, and more presentable.
Refrigerating your links does 2 things, it allows them to 'bloom', whereby all the flavours will have time to fully permeate the meat.. and it will also allow the 'pellicle' to form, which basically means that the outer surface will become a little tacky and allow the smoke to stick to it for an alleged superior smoked result.

Other than that I'd say your sausages look pretty good.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[BBQer]

Thanks for the tips Paul.

So I need to not stuff them quite so big. Probably accounts for the fact that I had an extra hog casing when I was done.

As it was, I liked the Bramberg and Wurtenberg styles. Not so much the Nurenberg and Banger, and the Swiss, with the red wine, was an "interesting" different flavor.