Snack Sticks

quote:

Originally posted by Finman:
Fellow smoke junkies, I recently smoked 25 lbs of venison sticks using collagen casings for the first time. After vacuum sealing them and opening them up later to eat the casings seemed soft and sort of fell off the stick. Any idea why this would happen? Fresh they were awesome and I have not had this happen with sheep casings before.

Finman

I had that happen once.. I think maybe they were still a little warm and they sweat in the vac bag. Tasted fine, casing just came off real easy......

This happened to me as well. Now I usually lay them on the kitchen counter for 2 hours to get to room temperature before putting them in bags and in the fridge.

Thanks for the suggestions, I actually waited two days before I packed them and they were actually cooled to almost freezing if not frozen once. Maybe the cold or frozen temperature is what caused it? I don't know!

There are different types of collagen casings. One is designed for smoking and the other is for fresh sausage.

I dont case snack sticks any more, just make them the length of the rack and cut them after they are smoked.

I have this problem with almost all colegen casings, I have tried more humidity, less humidity different brands, I even asked the guy at the butcher supply place and he couldn't answer me just said to peel it off the stick is good. He also told me the only difference between fresh and smoke casing is the fresh ones are thinner.

I have tried them in my smoketee, my propane smoker and me dehydrator they all come off the stick.

I just did 25# of meat into sticks, used 21mm colegen casings again.
I read somewhere about soaking them before use.

I also stopped by the butcher supply place ( http://www.davesbutchersupply.com/begin.html )
I asked him about soaking he told me not to as I would have a mess, and it is the moisture in the meat that makes them adhere. I also asked about shelf life on them, and he said as long as they are kept dry they have none, they keep them in a cooler there so I stash mine in a refrigerator.

I did wet some of them, it softens them some and they are more prone to bursting.

will dry them friday.