Bratwurst casing cracked?

[ryansguitars]

Hello,

I made a batch of bratwurst last night and threw them on the grill for dinner. All of the casings split on them once on the grill.

The casings used were a hog casing and the package said they are to be used for items to include brats. I am checking to see what causes this.

This was my first time making sausage and was a fun experience. On the advice of others from this forum I purchased the Northern Tools Grinder/Stuffer and I was pleased with it's performance. I think my next purchase will be a stuffer.

Thanks for any help, sorry for no pics but you could say these weren't the prettiest things to photograph.

 

[junkcollector]

You know what they say, 

 hahaha..... 

seriously, the cases splitting, i'd figure the heat on the grill was too hot. 

pretty don't mean diddly if you liked them. im sure their presentation will please you as you get the hang of it. 

 

[reinhard]

Heat being too high could be one of the reasons for sure, but you have to give us more to chew on here please.  Give us a run-down on how you prepared the casings, and how you stuffed the sausage.  Freezing casings for example can weaken casings over time [if they were frozen].  With your whole process simply stated we can eliminate possible causes. If you do put your brats on the grill "fresh" it's a good idea to put them on "indirect heat" in my opinion and not over the heat source from the get go.  Reinhard

 

[junkcollector]

thankyou for chiming in reinhard, i had always just attributed split casings to too much heat. never give it much more thought than that.

Thank you sir.

louie

 

[dingo007]

I agree with Reinhard...need more info...recipe & method. Could've been to hot, overstuffed or something in the recipe itself.....hard to say.

 

[ryansguitars]

Here is the quick run down of how I did things,

I cut up a 5# shoulder and chilled in freezer to make the chunks fairly solid. I ran the meat through a medium plate (northern tools #12 grinder). I chilled the meat again and ran it through the fine plate in the grinder. I then added my spices (a quick mix found on internet). Everything was mixed by hand.

I use hog casings and had soaked them in warm water for approximately 30 minutes prior to stuffing. I also washed the insides out by running water through them. I just bought the casings earlier this day. They were packed in salt.

I use my grinder as a stuffer and began stuffing the sausages. The first one I did looked very nice, but towards the end it split out on me. The second and third ones were not as pretty looking, but I didn't have any blowouts.

I twisted them off into links and put into the fridge overnight.

Next day I poked a few holes in each casing and put in a bath of beer over low heat for 15 minutes or so. I then put them onto a very hot grill (direct heat). I will add that I would cook a store bought brat over the same grill heat and haven't had the problem of the casing breaking.

The casings were fine coming out of the beer bath and I would agree that the high heat from the grill would likely be my problem. 

Thanks for the help so far.

 

[reinhard]

Seems like you did everything well as far as I can tell from your post.  The soaking time of the casings is a little short in my opinion.  I flush and leave my casings in water in the fridge overnight and then pull them out about a couple of hours from the fridge before stuffing to let them get to room temp at least.  Now that is not a must do for everyone, that's just me.  Soaking for for a couple of hours at least I would say or more.  Just makes the casing more soft and easier to work with for me.  However that may not be the reason for the spliting.  I think the high heat were the culprit here most likely as Junkcollector stated earlier.  Thanks for posting your process for that helps all of us to give advice and to learn from as well.  Some day when you get the chance [or cash] get yourself a 5 pound vertical stuffer.  Northern Tool has some good deal on some at times.  Anywhere from !00 to 140 bucks.  It will make your stuffing experience so much better. Reinhard