Snap of a sausage casing?

[kenzmad]

We eat alot of polish/kielbasa/ andouille sausage here at home. Going to be a winter project to make my own. I have grinder,stuffer mixer, smoker so im good there. Just got home from Oktoberfest in Leavenworth. The snap in the sausage case was amazing. Regular sausage and polish had the same. Is this a cook thing, a temp thing, or maybe a case quality thing? Coulda been a beer thing at the time but seems to be something else.

[92xj]

Natural casing causes the snap you desire. 

Collagens are easier to use and deal with, but you won’t get that snap

[huntnnw]

Natural casings plus start smoking at a low heat to dry out that casing before increasing temp gives that casing a snap

[addicted1]

How big is you stuffer? Size doesn’t always matter, but I think having a bigger stuffer helps get the job. Nothing worse than having to continually add more meat to it. I got a smaller 5 lbs one and would recommend going bigger.

[NOCK NOCK]

I could be way off, but too much fat in the mix will cause the casings to go/be limp. My wife referred to them as the "sheath", always had to peel off or remove before eating. 

[gallion_t]

There are a lot that goes into it. Couple of the main factors are getting good emulsification between the meat and the fat with in it. This essentially means a lot of mixing until sausage mix sticks to your hands. You'll also want to use a binder, most commonly milk powder. Once your sausages are stuffed it's ideal to dry out the casings. Either over night in the fridge or by putting a fan blowing over them. You'll then want to cook at a low temperature until you get them fully cooked. Immediately after pulling them off the smoker throw them in an ice bath. This rapidly stops the cooking process and helps shrink the casing and bind it to the sausage.

I would highly recommend hopping on YouTube and looking up chuds BBQ. He regularly does sausage on there and has a whole 3 part series on the basics of sausage making. I am by no means an expert, but after having watched him and doing and handful of batches my sausage has significantly gotten better.

Be warned it's an addicting hobby. It's basically the same work to make a 25lb batch as it is to make a 5lb batch, but you'll want to start out small so you can do test batches until you dial in a flavor profile you and your family like. Last thing you want is to have 100 links no one enjoys.

Best of luck and have fun!