Hog casings - ever seen this??

[bacon_crazy510]

I made a batch of PS Seasoning # 443 ham sausage today. I added freeze dried chives and cheese curds to the recipe. I stuffed it in hog casings I've had, and used, with no issues in the past. It was chilly here today, and the temp wasn't coming up the way I wanted, so after 4 hours in the smoker I pulled them to vacuum pack them and finish them in a sous vide bath.

When I pulled them from the smoker I found a few of them speckled... Photo attached.

Have any of you seen this before? At first I thought it was fat on the surface, but no. It was dry. After the sous vide it disapated, but is still somewhat visible on a few of the links.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Steve

 

[daveomak]

Salt ???? Were the casings packed in salt when you got them ??? You may not have flushed them thoroughly, if they were....

 

[SmokinEdge]

I’m thinking along the lines of ^^^^^ Dave^^^^^. Salt residue.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Second pic looks more internal, so my second thought is the cheese curds breaking up in the mix.

 

[indaswamp]

I remember reading something about this somewhere in one of the books I have....But for the life of me I can't remember what the cause is. Now it's gonna bug me.....

 

[DougE]

I remember reading something about this somewhere in one of the books I have....But for the life of me I can't remember what the cause is. Now it's gonna bug me.....

You'll be digging through books all night now, lol.

 

[boykjo]

Second pic looks more internal, so my second thought is the cheese curds breaking up in the mix.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[bacon_crazy510]

Yeah, maybe the curds. I chopped them by hand, and there was some curd "dust" in the mix. As for the casings, they were in a salt brine. I rinsed them several times, and flushed them several times as well. They also soaked in fresh water for about 18 hours, so I don't think it is salt. They smelled and stuffed normally, so I'm not concerned about any safety issue.

indaswamp if you find that info I'm still interested! I'm going to dive in my Marianski books this morning and look too.

Thanks all!

Steve

 

[chopsaw]

If you have the package for the cheese curds check the percentage of salt in them .

so my second thought is the cheese curds breaking up in the mix.

Leaching salt or the cheese it self ?

 

[bacon_crazy510]

Here are the curds I used. They have 135mg salt per 1 ounce serving. I used 10 ounces (10% of the 6.25 pound total weight of the batch) so that's only an additional 1.35 grams of salt.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Leaching salt or the cheese it self ?

Particles from the curds themselves. Guessing.