Advice on casings please.

[sausagedevil]

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

[Big Guy]

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

[the chorizo kid]

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.

[the chorizo kid]

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

[sausagedevil]

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