Frozen Hog casings.

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Frozen Hog casings.

Postby yotmon » Thu Sep 18, 2014 12:30 pm

I wouldn't worry too much about placing sausage casings in the freezer. Back in 2012 I bought a 100 yd hank of hog casings which were dry packed in salt. I separated them into 4 bags and one of these bags mistakenly ended up in the freezer. A few weeks ago I came across the casings and thawed them out. They appeared to be okay and I've made sausages with them twice since. The casings are in good order - no smells, splits or holes. They fill well and hold their shape. Anyone else had experience of freezing casings ?
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Re: Frozen Hog casings.

Postby vagreys » Thu Sep 18, 2014 4:52 pm

I have. Brine-packed casing is much more likely to break up than dry, in my experience. A lot of factors go into how the tissue of the casing responds to freezing - moisture content, temperature, speed of freezing, speed and method of thawing,.. All affect how the casing survives freezing. In my experience, casing that has been frozen is more prone to splits and holes. I once had some brine-packed that got frozen in the back of the fridge, so worst possible situation - wet, slow freeze, warm freezing temperature - when I got it thawed, it seemed to be ok, but every 6th or 7th link blew one way or another. Early on, when I was getting started, I put my dry-pack casing in the freezer, not knowing any better. it fared better, but still had a frustratingly high number of blowouts. Casing is just tissue and is affected by freezing like any other animal tissue. Frozen meat can be quite good, or it can be awful, depending on how it was handled. this is true, more or less, with casing. There's a reason casing companies warn against freezing their product, and that's because the product suffers more often than not. JMO, of course.
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