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Casings on tape

PostPosted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 10:00 pm
by BMII
First of all apologies for silly questions, tomorrow I'm having a serious go at making sausages, before I'd only used collagen casings and wasn't impressed, however having bought some kit as explained in a previous post, including a cheap stuffer from Tongmaster who sent me hog casings on tape, it recommends soaking them overnight but 2 hours minimum, I like a bit of bite to my sausage and worrying I may soak them too long for a start, what I don't know is how long they are, I think the shortest they do is 5 metres and I think they're 36mm, it doesn't say on the pack.

My first silly question is do I take them off the tape before soaking them or just take them out of the bag and soak them on the tape?

Will it matter if I halve the soaking time?
I can start soaking them sometime in the morning as I won't be using them until sometime in the evening, probably not until 8 pm, but maybe earlier.

I only have 3lbs of pork, by the time I got to the butcher he only had some belly left, it's quite leanish and he reckons it has enough fat as I did ask if I'd need more, he took the rind off for me, I was going to use shoulder but all gone.
There isn't a lot of fat on belly he sold me.
I've looked at the batch calculator and reckon I've just about worked it out but as I said don't know the length of the casing.
He also gave me a bag of medium rusk, just treated me to it, no charge, he reckons it's about enough to use 2 pints of water with but I won't be making that much with 3lbs of meat!
So wondering about the water to rusk ratio and measuring it, I use cups and measuring spoons, my scales are useless and I'm only planning on using 10% rusk by volume max.

I haven't decided on a spice mix yet but I have fresh garlic and 2 fresh lemons, intending to use the zest as I do like lemon in a sausage!
I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions to compliment one or both of these, I'll be using nutmeg of course but have to buy more herbs/spices tomorrow, I have 3 times daily IVs through a PICC line and one of these is done at the hospital so can get what I need on the way back from the hospital.

What do you think will go well and fresh or dried?
I will probably be freezing some so wondered how fresh herbs would freeze in the sausage and I'd quite like to take the time to use fresh if possible.

I was planning an Italian style sausage originally with no rusk/filler and all fresh herbs but a mate is coming round to give me a hand and trying to give him cooking instructions is impossible, I don't want him taking some away and ruining them so I'm using rusk, it's going to be an evening of alcohol infused sausage making anyway and we won't be cooking them on the night, lamb chops are on the menu 8)

Please don't say fennel, I hate anything with a liquorish/aniseed taste no matter how mild it is and found an Italian recipe that doesn't use it but that's not what I'm planning tomorrow.

Any help/advice would be appreciated especially on the casings.
I've got 2 small packs but was planning on only using one given the calculator.

Cheers

Andy