Fist time sausage maker question

[wellys]

Hi

We got two pigs back from slaughter on Thursday and decided to have a go at making sausages ourselves instead of letting the butcher do them. As usual we thought we'd have a go first and then find out how to do it properly later!

Our butcher kindly did the mincing for us and we have a Kenwood with stuffing attachment. We used Devro handlink casings that someone had given us.

The mixing went well and we started stuffing, which wasn't too bad once we got the hang of it. Linking seemed OK and the sausages looked wonderful at the end of it.

However when it came to cooking them, the ends of the sausages just opened up and the sausage mix oozed out. We ended up with a sausage with casing only in the middle and just sausagemeat at either end.

What did we do wrong and how can we prevent this in the future?

Wellys

[sausagemaker]

Hi Welly

Firstly Welcome to the forum

At a guess you did not mix the sausage meat long enough,or you had too much water.
You need to ensure the meat is tacky, this is the protein that adheres to that casing.
When using collagen casing you also need to rest it once filled not only for flavour development but time for the protein to glue to the casing, in factories that freeze there products immediately this can take up to a week to stop the extrusion, however on fresh overnight is usually sufficient.

Regards
Sausagemaker