Casing packaging selection and saving unused casings
Casing packaging selection and saving unused casings
Casing packaging selection and saving unused casings
At the various online butcher and sausage-making supply stores, casings are sold by the hank, in smaller "home packs", and pre-tubed. The home pack casings are packed in dry salt in vacuum sealed bags. The hanks may be packed in dry salt in vacuum bags like the home packs but larger, dry salted in small buckets, wet in salt water brine-filled plastic bags, and dry salted in net bags.
The home packs and the pre-tubed casings are pricey compared to hanks. So for reasons of economy, I would prefer to buy a hank each of the sizes I'll most commonly use. Since I'll be making small batches of sausage at a time, say 5 to 10 pounds of any particular sausage, a hank will last me quite a while. I know they keep for a long time in the refrigerator, and that unused casings that I've washed can be salted and put back in the fridge.
Here are my questions:
1) For a small volume home sausage maker who will consume a hank slowly over a period of time, are there advantages to one type of packaging over another? I.e., packed dry in salt in a bag or bucket, wet in a brine, or net packs?
2) When saving unused excess washed casings after a sausage making session, what is the best method of preserving them? Tasso
I have only used hanks and like you only use a small amount at a time.
If you get them in the small buckets from the SM those work just fine for long term storage...but do take up space in the fridge.
I just repack them in fresh salt and vacuum seal in a bag, saves space and eliminates the chance of spillage in a zip-lock bag.
Unused washed casings can be just added back to the bag. The Sausage Maker sells a hank of 32-36mm hog casings for $29.99, does about 125lbs. of sausage. They sell the home-paks that do 25lbs. for $5.99. Seems to be about a draw, and I've had some home-paks that gave me over 50lbs of finished product. Refrigerator space is always at a premium around our house, I salt and vac-real the leftovers. RAY'Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.' So Bob and Ray, you both vacuum seal your dry-salted hanks. That makes sense as a space saving and mess-avoiding method.
If I had a hank of preflushed casings in brine, I could put them in brine in a plastic container after opening the bag. I believe I could also drain them, pat dry, then seal them up in vacuum bags or in a ziploc with plenty of salt. That would be more convenient for storage, but with the loss of the preflushed aspect.
Ray, I was looking at the natural casings at www.butcher-packer.com. They have 32/35mm and 35/38mm hog casings for $16.33. They call it a "bundle" rather than a "hank", but they say each bundle is 100 yards in length and yields 100 to 125 pounds of sausage. So that seems like the best price I've seen anywhere for a hank of hog casings in those sizes. Have you ever tried them? Tasso
Those bundles are all short lengths of casing...a PIA if you link.
'Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.'
Still, at that price, it looks pretty attractive to me. The short casings didn't bother me when I made my Italian sausage. I made short links, 5 inches long. It might be more of a pain if I'm making longer links or big loops. Something to consider in contrast to the great price.
If those hanks are roughly equivalent to 4 home packs, then the $16.33 price is a 20 percent improvement over the price for an equivalent number of home packs at Allied Kenco, where I bought the home pack I used for my Italian sausages a couple of weeks ago. These: http://www.alliedkenco.com/casing-hog-3 ... epack.aspx Tasso,
If you place natural casings in a "saturated solution" of salt water and keep them refrigerated, they will keep for years if necessary. Saturated is when the water will dissolve no more salt. Add just a bit more salt to the mixture at this point and you'll have a salt "slush" - perfect for storing casings. Due to their very nature, they can become mighty odoriferous in long-term storage, sort of like Cabonaia's dirty ol' work socks! They are just fine to use when rinsed and cleaned before stuffing but sometimes getting them past your nose is the trick!
Best Wishes,
ChuckwagonIf it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! I have a hank of 41/44mm casings that I haven't opened yet. They are pre-flushed and in a sealed plastic bag filled with brine. I'll transfer the casings and brine to a sturdier container when I open them.
After a sausage making session, can I return any unused extra casings back to the same container with the rest of the hank, or is it better to keep them separated in a different brine solution? I'm thinking here about casings that were loaded onto the stuffing horn, but didn't get used. They could have had incidental contact with raw sausage.
One more thing... never, ever, put any "lubricant" on the stuffing horn (such as butter, lard, oil, etc.). Don't do it. The casings will present problems later and during cooking, there will be hard, dry, spots. To make them go on the stuffing horn easily, use the "water bubble" technique shown in Rytek's book.
Best Wishes,
ChuckwagonIf it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! Thanks, Chuckwagon. I'll check out the technique in Rytek's book.
Meanwhile, I opened that package of 41/44mm casings and separated one out so I could "play" with it. I wanted to get an idea of how to handle them. After separating out several yards of a single strand of casing, it got too tangled up, so I cut it from the hank. It's still much longer than the ones that came in the home pack I used before.
Now it's soaking in water, but when I went to flush it with water, it somehow managed to tangle itself up in knots. There must be a trick or two I'm not aware of. I'll hit Rytek's book for tips on that too.
EDIT: I got that piece of casing untangled, finally, by using the old wine trick. You drink two glasses of wine, and then in your relaxed and unstressed state of mind, the casing practically untangles itself as you gently wiggle it around in the water. Works every time! If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill!
Haven't used gut casing for over 15 years and don't miss 'em at all........
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I've read a few topics about casing selection and management on this forum, but I still have a couple of questions.At the various online butcher and sausage-making supply stores, casings are sold by the hank, in smaller "home packs", and pre-tubed. The home pack casings are packed in dry salt in vacuum sealed bags. The hanks may be packed in dry salt in vacuum bags like the home packs but larger, dry salted in small buckets, wet in salt water brine-filled plastic bags, and dry salted in net bags.
The home packs and the pre-tubed casings are pricey compared to hanks. So for reasons of economy, I would prefer to buy a hank each of the sizes I'll most commonly use. Since I'll be making small batches of sausage at a time, say 5 to 10 pounds of any particular sausage, a hank will last me quite a while. I know they keep for a long time in the refrigerator, and that unused casings that I've washed can be salted and put back in the fridge.
Here are my questions:
1) For a small volume home sausage maker who will consume a hank slowly over a period of time, are there advantages to one type of packaging over another? I.e., packed dry in salt in a bag or bucket, wet in a brine, or net packs?
2) When saving unused excess washed casings after a sausage making session, what is the best method of preserving them? Tasso
I have only used hanks and like you only use a small amount at a time.
If you get them in the small buckets from the SM those work just fine for long term storage...but do take up space in the fridge.
I just repack them in fresh salt and vacuum seal in a bag, saves space and eliminates the chance of spillage in a zip-lock bag.
Unused washed casings can be just added back to the bag. The Sausage Maker sells a hank of 32-36mm hog casings for $29.99, does about 125lbs. of sausage. They sell the home-paks that do 25lbs. for $5.99. Seems to be about a draw, and I've had some home-paks that gave me over 50lbs of finished product. Refrigerator space is always at a premium around our house, I salt and vac-real the leftovers. RAY'Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.' So Bob and Ray, you both vacuum seal your dry-salted hanks. That makes sense as a space saving and mess-avoiding method.
If I had a hank of preflushed casings in brine, I could put them in brine in a plastic container after opening the bag. I believe I could also drain them, pat dry, then seal them up in vacuum bags or in a ziploc with plenty of salt. That would be more convenient for storage, but with the loss of the preflushed aspect.
Ray, I was looking at the natural casings at www.butcher-packer.com. They have 32/35mm and 35/38mm hog casings for $16.33. They call it a "bundle" rather than a "hank", but they say each bundle is 100 yards in length and yields 100 to 125 pounds of sausage. So that seems like the best price I've seen anywhere for a hank of hog casings in those sizes. Have you ever tried them? Tasso
Those bundles are all short lengths of casing...a PIA if you link.
Tasso wrote:So Bob and Ray, you both vacuum seal your dry-salted hanks. That makes sense as a space saving and mess-avoiding method. Ray, I was looking at the natural casings at www.butcher-packer.com. They have 32/35mm and 35/38mm hog casings for $16.33. They call it a "bundle" rather than a "hank", but they say each bundle is 100 yards in length and yields 100 to 125 pounds of sausage. So that seems like the best price I've seen anywhere for a hank of hog casings in those sizes. Have you ever tried them?I don't do hanks Tasso, I order home-paks ten at a time. My standard batch of sausage is usually 22 lbs. and I always seem to have a fair amount of casing left to salt and save in the fridge, taking up very little space. Most of the casings I get in a 32-35mm home-pak from PS Seasonings are 4-6 feet long, any longer than that and it gets kind of goofy to work with for me, I'm a one-man show. $16.33 for a hank would seem to be a great price. RAY
'Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.'
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Bob K wrote:TassoAh, I see. So it's like a giant, hank-sized home pack. Same type of short casings like you find in a home pack, but a whole hank's worth in the package.
Those bundles are all short lengths of casing...a PIA if you link.
Still, at that price, it looks pretty attractive to me. The short casings didn't bother me when I made my Italian sausage. I made short links, 5 inches long. It might be more of a pain if I'm making longer links or big loops. Something to consider in contrast to the great price.
sawhorseray wrote:I don't do hanks Tasso, I order home-paks ten at a time. My standard batch of sausage is usually 22 lbs. and I always seem to have a fair amount of casing left to salt and save in the fridge, taking up very little space. Most of the casings I get in a 32-35mm home-pak from PS Seasonings are 4-6 feet long, any longer than that and it gets kind of goofy to work with for me, I'm a one-man show. $16.33 for a hank would seem to be a great price. RAYGreat looking links, Ray. It looks like you have a motorized stuffer too, very helpful for a one-man show. Very sweet.
If those hanks are roughly equivalent to 4 home packs, then the $16.33 price is a 20 percent improvement over the price for an equivalent number of home packs at Allied Kenco, where I bought the home pack I used for my Italian sausages a couple of weeks ago. These: http://www.alliedkenco.com/casing-hog-3 ... epack.aspx Tasso,
If you place natural casings in a "saturated solution" of salt water and keep them refrigerated, they will keep for years if necessary. Saturated is when the water will dissolve no more salt. Add just a bit more salt to the mixture at this point and you'll have a salt "slush" - perfect for storing casings. Due to their very nature, they can become mighty odoriferous in long-term storage, sort of like Cabonaia's dirty ol' work socks! They are just fine to use when rinsed and cleaned before stuffing but sometimes getting them past your nose is the trick!
Best Wishes,
ChuckwagonIf it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! I have a hank of 41/44mm casings that I haven't opened yet. They are pre-flushed and in a sealed plastic bag filled with brine. I'll transfer the casings and brine to a sturdier container when I open them.
After a sausage making session, can I return any unused extra casings back to the same container with the rest of the hank, or is it better to keep them separated in a different brine solution? I'm thinking here about casings that were loaded onto the stuffing horn, but didn't get used. They could have had incidental contact with raw sausage.
After a sausage making session, can I return any unused extra casings back to the same container with the rest of the hank, or is it better to keep them separated in a different brine solution? I'm thinking here about casings that were loaded onto the stuffing horn, but didn't get used. They could have had incidental contact with raw sausage.Tasso, if you used clean processing techniques, you can return them to the original brine without any problems. Be sure the solution is saturated.
One more thing... never, ever, put any "lubricant" on the stuffing horn (such as butter, lard, oil, etc.). Don't do it. The casings will present problems later and during cooking, there will be hard, dry, spots. To make them go on the stuffing horn easily, use the "water bubble" technique shown in Rytek's book.
Best Wishes,
ChuckwagonIf it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill! Thanks, Chuckwagon. I'll check out the technique in Rytek's book.
Meanwhile, I opened that package of 41/44mm casings and separated one out so I could "play" with it. I wanted to get an idea of how to handle them. After separating out several yards of a single strand of casing, it got too tangled up, so I cut it from the hank. It's still much longer than the ones that came in the home pack I used before.
Now it's soaking in water, but when I went to flush it with water, it somehow managed to tangle itself up in knots. There must be a trick or two I'm not aware of. I'll hit Rytek's book for tips on that too.
EDIT: I got that piece of casing untangled, finally, by using the old wine trick. You drink two glasses of wine, and then in your relaxed and unstressed state of mind, the casing practically untangles itself as you gently wiggle it around in the water. Works every time! If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably needs more time on the grill!
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Tasso, After the afore mentioned vagaries of gut casings I found nice dry store for ever collagen casings.Haven't used gut casing for over 15 years and don't miss 'em at all........
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