I'm just realizing I may have screwed up this 4 lb batch of summer sausage. I had a pound of ground pork and 3 lbs of ground beef to use up so I went trolling for easy recipes for my 3rd go at sausage making and found a nice summer sausage recipe in one of my books. I miss-read the first ingredient, beef casings, and I ended up stuffing them in 30mm collagen casing which I had. (this recipe says you can use liquid smoke and cook in the oven to 160* if you don't want to smoke house them, I compromised and put just a little LS in and am planning to lightly smoke to 160* in the MES30.
So my question is, is there a big difference between cologen casing and beef casing? I'm guessing the beef casing is the typical peel before eating type of case, whereas collagen is edible. I don't think there would be a safety issue. I also am wondering if I don't want a really smokey flavour, do I still need to step up the smoker temp by 10* every hour starting at 130* like I do for the snack sticks or is it okay to just put them in at 170* smoker temp?
The good news is the fry test was AWESOME! Best I have made, it made me think damn this is good, that's what I was looking for in my snack sticks but that will come with time.
Thanks for the help.
Cheers
So my question is, is there a big difference between cologen casing and beef casing? I'm guessing the beef casing is the typical peel before eating type of case, whereas collagen is edible. I don't think there would be a safety issue. I also am wondering if I don't want a really smokey flavour, do I still need to step up the smoker temp by 10* every hour starting at 130* like I do for the snack sticks or is it okay to just put them in at 170* smoker temp?
The good news is the fry test was AWESOME! Best I have made, it made me think damn this is good, that's what I was looking for in my snack sticks but that will come with time.
Thanks for the help.
Cheers