A year and half ago when I first started making my own sausage, I tried natural casings. Had numerous problems in regards to blowouts and appearance and smell. Tried collagen and very much liked the ease of it, but did dislike the tying of the links. I swore I would never go back to natural as I didn't taste much difference, but after reading a lot, I decided to give it another try last month. I purchased another home pack and the 1st batch was similar to my 1st attempt. Not as many blowouts as I was more experienced, but the looks with all the veins and stuff was very unappealing. After cooking, the appearance was fine and I do admit, the mouth feel is a lot different, something I never noticed before. I wonder how the commercial sausage makers who use collagen can get the texture darn close and not use strings to link and we home folks can't. Anyway, I did some research and read that by inverting the casing, the appearance is much more appetizing. Not hard to invert the casing either, so that's what I did and really liked it. Now my actual question. I ordered Pre-flushed casings from Syracuse Casings. I wanted them in the brine and not tubed as I was going to turn them inside out. What I got was tubed in a salt pack with directions saying if I don't want the tube, just remove it. I called them and asked why it wasn't sent in the brine and he said the US Postal service won't let them and they only shipped in the salt pack now. He was the casing guy and said they are waiting to get the web site updated. Not a big deal I guess, but do I soak these the night before like I did with the shriveled home pack or just 30 minutes like on the directions? Being that these are tubed, would inverting the casing make much difference? Reading on line, some casings look better than others and maybe I had cheap ones. What procedure do you folks that used tubed, salted casings follow? Do you still add vinegar to the soaking? Sorry for the long post, just not sure. Thanks!!