Hog casings were giving me fits until I switched to sheep casings for my brats

I was fighting with hog casings for months on my weekend batches, they kept blowing out on the stuffer or tearing when I twisted links. After 3 tries at a shop in Portland, the old timer there told me to try 22-24mm sheep casings instead and I haven't looked back. Anyone else made the swap and noticed a difference in how clean the links come out?

3 comments

3 Comments

knight.felix21d ago

Sheep are 22-24mm, but hog casings for brats are usually 28-32mm so that swap is a size thing not a species thing.

finley_gonzalez4920d ago

Wait, I gotta push back on that. The chewing texture and snap are totally different between sheep and hog casings, you can't just swap sizes and pretend it's the same. A 28mm hog casing has way more collagen density and structural integrity than a 24mm sheep one, which changes how the casing breaks down in your mouth. If you're doing a batch of brats, you're gonna notice that difference even if the diameters overlap.

elliot_gibson2720d ago

Hey @knight.felix, have you tried mixing sheep and hog casings in the same batch? I did that once and it threw off the whole texture.