How to ruin perfectly good Kielbasa

[Coach JoeQB]

So I followed all the advise and made awesome tasting kielbasa. Problem, the casing is like shoe leather. The meat is pink and delicious, the casing ruins it.

I got hog casings packed in salt from the sausage maker. I rinsed them then soaked them in water with a little vinegar. I soaked them at least 24 hours. I filled them, dried them in the fridge for 24 hours. I smoked them for 4 hour with the pellet tube. Then SV'd them for an hour at 151 degrees. The meat was perfect, tasted extremely good.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[DougE]

I don't know if you are doing anything wrong. There have been several saying that casings from them were tough, no matter how they treated them, myself included.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

So what casing should I get? Lem? Overseas?

 

[DougE]

I think butcher packer will be the next place I go to when I am in need of more casings.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

Doug E

Thanks, looking them up now.

Joe

 

[pc farmer]

Butcher packer or butcher pantry. Both work good for me.

 

[DougE]

Doug E

Thanks, looking them up now.

Joe

No guarantees, but like I said, other's have reported the toughness issue with casings from TSM lately. I know a few who order from butcher packer, and I have not seen any complaints.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

They look good, price is right, and they seem to have everything. I wonder if they charge for delivery?

 

[SmokinEdge]

Tough casings is not abnormal. It’s a lot of the casing quality and a lot of casing prep, but mostly how you finish cook the sausage. In water or steam is best, time in matters also. Beyond that some casings are tough, but this is manageable to a point.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

Craft Butcher's Pantry says they are whisker free and pretubed. I just ordered casings, the delivery charge was rotten, Amazon has spoiled us.

 

[boykjo]

IMO you put gasoline on the fire. Casings packed in salt tend to be tough if not soaked and washed for a long period of time and even then they do not become soft.. Adding vinegar will make it worse. Use a cap full of vinegar only if there is some odor present. I use butcher and packer. Great products there. Never had any issues with anything from them and they have the best prices.

How to handle natural casings

Thought I would post up what I do with natural casings. I use naturals 99.9% of the time when making sausages be it sheep or hog casings. I get compliments about how the casing are very delicate and have a perfect snap when you bite into the sausage. I believe the quality of the casings is part...

www.smokingmeatforums.com

 

[Coach JoeQB]

I put tough casings in the Google machine and they recommended using vinegar. After that I saw another post that said baking soda.

 

[boykjo]

Don't believe everything google tells you.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

You mean there really isn't clowns in sewers?

 

[tallbm]

So I followed all the advise and made awesome tasting kielbasa. Problem, the casing is like shoe leather. The meat is pink and delicious, the casing ruins it.

I got hog casings packed in salt from the sausage maker. I rinsed them then soaked them in water with a little vinegar. I soaked them at least 24 hours. I filled them, dried them in the fridge for 24 hours. I smoked them for 4 hour with the pellet tube. Then SV'd them for an hour at 151 degrees. The meat was perfect, tasted extremely good.

What am I doing wrong?

If you grill the kielbasa to reheat and eat it AND you make sure it gets good heat on all sides, that should cure the problem.

The heat from the grill will crisp this skins up BUT you gotta rotate the links so the casings get good hot heat all over BUT without over cooking the whole thing.
So medium heat and just keep rotating. Practice this until you get it down and you will have great grilled/reheated links with snappy/crispy casings :)

 

[Coach JoeQB]

I sliced them and pan fried them with crispy potatoes and sauerkraut. The meat was great but the casings were shoe leather.

Maybe I will air fry some and then slice so the casings get crispy.

 

[Coach JoeQB]

Son just came home from work and smelled the smoke so I threw some in the oven on air fry. Let's see if I get them crisp if it helps.

 

[indaswamp]

^^^^what Boykjo said. Casings packed in salt will be tough unless soaked for a looooong time. Buy casings in a bag of liquid brine. More better....soft and supple.....and will keep for a looooong time in the fridge too!

 

[Coach JoeQB]

Ok, crisping the skins helped. Not shoe leather, but still not tender. The casings I just ordered claim to be high caliber and no whiskers. They are also pretubed, not that tubing them has been an issue.

I just want to say thanks to all here. Your advise has been priceless and real.

It's crazy but I see a direct correlation between sausage making and bread making. Working out the proper ratios and refining the techniques.

BTW.... son loved the kielbasa and my 1/2 sour pickles.

 

[tallbm]

Ok, crisping the skins helped. Not shoe leather, but still not tender. The casings I just ordered claim to be high caliber and no whiskers. They are also pretubed, not that tubing them has been an issue.

I just want to say thanks to all here. Your advise has been priceless and real.

It's crazy but I see a direct correlation between sausage making and bread making. Working out the proper ratios and refining the techniques.

BTW.... son loved the kielbasa and my 1/2 sour pickles.

Glad you are working those sausages into shape.
Simply cooking with some heat where they don't sit in their own juices should greatly improve the skin texture. Your first test is showing promising results, now its just time to expand on it until you know how to have acceptable texture when this situation happens :)