Case Hardening in fresh sausage?

[Midwest_kc]

Made my first batch of fresh sausages a couple weeks ago (I’ll get into smoked ones later). A common issue I’m having is that when hot smoking them to eat, I’ve had some casings that are hard and chewy.

What could be the cause of this? I had a bit of a learning curve with the stuffer, and getting that done properly, and if it was just some that were a little underfilled I could assume it was that. However, some of the properly filled links have been tough too.

Thanks for the help and feedback!

[Tex_77]

Midwest_kc First, what kind of casings were you using? What temp were you cooking at? Did you overcook the sausages? If you underfill the casing, you can always keep twisting until you get a nice tight sausage, but not to tight, or you will blowout.

[Midwest_kc]

Natural hog casings on the tube from waltons. I believe the 30-32mm. Cooked them to 160-165.

[Jonathon]

Midwest_kc What was the temp? For fresh sausage you don’t really want slow and low, you want to get it cooked fairly quickly. If you did slow and low it is possible the casing hardened. How much water did you add to your meat and what was fat content?

[Midwest_kc]

Jonathon Cooked at 225. To be fair, I think this may be it, as the ones I cooked on my drum at 300 didn’t have that same issue. I’m going to answer the other questions just to make sure I’m not missing something else somewhere.

I did a 10 lb batch, and used 1 cup of water in it.

I’m not sure on the fat content. It was pork butt, but it was trim that was left from after I trimmed some up for upcoming BBQ Comps. I trim them pretty aggressively for comps, but leave most of the fat cap on. It is mainly the horn muscle, and other muscles around the bone that I’m using.

[TexLaw]

Midwest_kc said in Case Hardening in fresh sausage?:

Cooked at 225. To be fair, I think this may be it, as the ones I cooked on my drum at 300 didn’t have that same issue.

Yes, I think you found your answer. You didn’t get “case hardening,” such that you couldn’t properly cook the interior, but you did toughen up the casing. I’ve done the same thing before.

If you have some of that batch left, you can fix that by giving what’s left of it a quick grilling (which ain’t gonna hurt it at all!)

[Jonathon]

Midwest_kc Yup, I agree with TexLaw this was the issue. It is something we often struggle with when we are trying to keep sausages warm on a smoker to give out as samples at events.