Thanks Richard, I am honored your first post was regarding mine! As I've been told and you'll be told by others, please go to the Forum > Announcements > Roll Call and introduce yourself to everyone. There are a lot of genuine and good people here who are willing to help with anything they can and as you'll soon find out, they know a lot!
I've only used collagen with my snack sticks. They're not a tough/forgiving as the natural casings won't give you the exact same 'snap' but they still will give you a 'snap'. Actually, one company (I will never use again) that I bought 19mm collagen casings from just broke on me the entire roll. Waste of money. The new brand I use worked great. I've never used them for sausages though. I read somewhere that you can get collagen casings that will have the slight curve built in so it looks like a natural casing but they are even more expensive.
When you moved this from "Pork" to "Sausage" my original post with all of the info and pics has disappeared. ?
I never actually posted recipes yet just the process. That's a good point and I'll remember that in the future.
I will triy dried in my next small batch. I did dry a bunch but then ground into powder and used that with fresh. I think they were 20lbs or so. I have to rinse them today and start the next step. Can't wait!! I just found a friend who is a chef and has an industrial slicer that I can use when the prosciutto is finished.
