I'm wondering if there is a trick to loading the casing quickly on a stuffing tube.
Here's what I did. As I said, it was successful but SLOW.
I got 32/36mm hog casings at a local grocer. They are weird. They looked shredded and ruined to me when I took them out. It took me 20 minutes, but I liberated and cut off a strand about 60" long.
I rinsed the outside in a 2qt measuring cup, then ran a thin stream of water into them and they blew up like water balloons. No signs of leaks yet. After two or three interior rinses they seemed done.
I'm puzzled by "threads" hanging off the casings. White, 1" to 1-1/2". I suppose these are some natural feature like blood vessels. Are they? Should I get rid of these somehow?
I soaked my 35mm hog casings 24-26 hours in half water half vinegar in a tall 4 cup container with screw top. They started in fridge. (Some sites say 30 minutes. Is that for real?). I saw postings where people said "soak in warm water" so the last 6 hours were room temp but sealed. After soaking the casings had relaxed to a noticeably wider diameter. I drained off all the water.
I had my (old-fashioned manual) grinder with spacer and medium tube (white plastic, maybe nylon?). End diameter probably 5/8". It was maybe 1-1/2" over the table surface, which I covered with 2-3 layers of waxed paper
First I tried loading onto the tube from the container. As I pulled it out, it seemed to contract to a diameter less than 1/4". It was very hard to get it going at all.
I ended up taking a big bowl and filling with water. I took the tube assembly off the grinder and put it into the bowl with the casings. I used the water to lubricate, and it worked OK in many ways, but then it was hard for my fingers to grip the casing enough to load it without slipping. It took at least 40 minutes, maybe an hour, for the sixty-odd inches of casing.
As I loaded the casing, it repeatedly got off-center with respect to the tube and that greatly hampered progress. I was quite worried about ripping the casing.
Once it was loaded I reconnected the tube, flange, star, etc to grinder and had very little trouble cranking out my small batch of eight sausages. They're smoking right now yum!
In terms of the casing, everyone says "just load it" but it seemed to take forever. Shouldn't I have been able to load 60" of medium casing in a couple of minutes? Or was this just because I did it weird, or that I just had to develop a feel for it?
All comments and advice gratefully accepted!
Here's what I did. As I said, it was successful but SLOW.
I got 32/36mm hog casings at a local grocer. They are weird. They looked shredded and ruined to me when I took them out. It took me 20 minutes, but I liberated and cut off a strand about 60" long.
I rinsed the outside in a 2qt measuring cup, then ran a thin stream of water into them and they blew up like water balloons. No signs of leaks yet. After two or three interior rinses they seemed done.
I'm puzzled by "threads" hanging off the casings. White, 1" to 1-1/2". I suppose these are some natural feature like blood vessels. Are they? Should I get rid of these somehow?
I soaked my 35mm hog casings 24-26 hours in half water half vinegar in a tall 4 cup container with screw top. They started in fridge. (Some sites say 30 minutes. Is that for real?). I saw postings where people said "soak in warm water" so the last 6 hours were room temp but sealed. After soaking the casings had relaxed to a noticeably wider diameter. I drained off all the water.
I had my (old-fashioned manual) grinder with spacer and medium tube (white plastic, maybe nylon?). End diameter probably 5/8". It was maybe 1-1/2" over the table surface, which I covered with 2-3 layers of waxed paper
First I tried loading onto the tube from the container. As I pulled it out, it seemed to contract to a diameter less than 1/4". It was very hard to get it going at all.
I ended up taking a big bowl and filling with water. I took the tube assembly off the grinder and put it into the bowl with the casings. I used the water to lubricate, and it worked OK in many ways, but then it was hard for my fingers to grip the casing enough to load it without slipping. It took at least 40 minutes, maybe an hour, for the sixty-odd inches of casing.
As I loaded the casing, it repeatedly got off-center with respect to the tube and that greatly hampered progress. I was quite worried about ripping the casing.
Once it was loaded I reconnected the tube, flange, star, etc to grinder and had very little trouble cranking out my small batch of eight sausages. They're smoking right now yum!
In terms of the casing, everyone says "just load it" but it seemed to take forever. Shouldn't I have been able to load 60" of medium casing in a couple of minutes? Or was this just because I did it weird, or that I just had to develop a feel for it?
All comments and advice gratefully accepted!