www.sausagemaking.org

I have made some very good chorizo using 23mm colagen casings. They took about 4 weeks to dry and are still great at 6 weeks but the colagen casings did not shrink as the sausages dried so i ended up with a chorizo with a baggy skin which is not attractive. The chorizo inside are delicious and shiney.
Am i doing something wrong or should i use different casings??
I want to make snack sausages so i want small casings so probably not hog runners. Would sheep or lamb casings be OK and are these casings wet or dry and what are the casings on tabs????
Pablo

you should have used protien lined cases, they will shrink with the meat.

sheep casings give skinny snack sticks, like an american breakfast sausage; by my eyeball about 1/2 inch [12-13 mm]. but lots of snack sticks here in the states are made with hog casings and dried to about 20 mm. it depends what you want. i have never used synthetics for anything but salami/summer sausage; protein lined as phil said.

sorry-the sheep casing i buy are dry and packed in salt. i do not know what you mean by tabs.

I've just got some sheep casings they were the skinniest things. They just looked like the thickness of twine while they were soaking but i got them on the thinnest stuffer tube i got and they were perfect, as you said about 1/2 inch when stuffed.
By the way when i said tabs i meant tapes. I still havn,t seen any but the butchers supplier says they are natural casings on a tape which helps yo
u put em on the tube and then you peel the tape off.
Far out!
Pablo