Soaking casing?

[Dunk79]

Firstly, hello to everyone, i have been luking around this forum for a while now, as i got a sausage making kit for christmas! I have been eagerly checking out recipes and ideas!

I made my first batch of sausages on saturday, about 20 lincolnshire, using the excellent spice mix form this very site, and another of my own recipe, cracked balck pepper and vintage chedder. Both turned out superb, even if i do say so myself!!

Now, onto the reason im posting!

I was wondering about soking casings. Now, i soaked mine for about 3 hours in cold water, worked fine not a problem. But i had a brainwave, but before i try it out, i thought i would ask everyones opinion! Can you use anything else for soaking cases? I was thining of making some pork and apple sausages, but instead of saoking the cases in water, letting them soak in a nice (real) cider, to add to the falvour. Would this have any adverse effects, or has anyone tried this sort of thing before? If it works, you could do all sorts of thing, using fruit jucies, ales and so on...

Just an idea, and it may not work, but any tips/advice would be most welcome!

Cheers,

Duncan

[TJ Buffalo]

It's an interesting idea; though I've never tried it, I'd say go for it and let us know how it comes out. After all, it seems to me that the point of soaking is to remove salt from the casing and rehydrate it so that it becomes supple enough for use, so I guess that anything with a fairly high water content should work.

[Wohoki]

I haven't tried with casings, but the alcohol content in cider ('specially a real cider) might toughen them. Alcohol tends to draw moisture out of meat when used as a marinade, but I guess that if you boiled the cider down by 20% first to evaporate the alcohol it should be fine. It'd intensify the flavour as well.


Interesting idea. Let us know.

[gideon]

I have made the loukanika sausage recipe from Len Poli's website and the recipe states that you should soak the casings in fresh orange juice, I did this and there was a backround flavour of orange in the sausage, but this recipe also has orange rind in the mix so it could really be that coming through.I may try another batch just soaking the casings in water and see if there is a change in flavour.

[welsh wizard]

Hi Dunk79

I would expect the casing not to retain much of the cider flavour once you had washed them out (unless you washed them out in cier of course). But for the price of a pint I would have a go - let us know how you get on

Cheers WW

[Hobbitfeet]

The purpose of soaking the casings, I thought, was to remove excess salt from them. I would think that there is nothing better than plain old water for that. Any extra flavour may as well be added to the sausage mix.