Snack Stick Collagen Casings question...

[beldend]

Made my first batch of venison snack sticks, the collagen casings don’t snap like I thought they would… they tear and pull away from the meat. I used 21 mm casings, my IT temp was 165 degrees F. 80/20 mix of venison/pork meat. I did not give them an ice bath… would that have helped with the “snap”?

[craigrice]

when you ice bath them you stop the cooking process this might help

[AdamCA]

beldend Part of what the ice bath does is “set” the casings to the meat so yes that would’ve helped.

[Elsos]

I’m new to snack sticks and want to get good at them.
I too have been having the same"non snap" or just plain chewy casings. Using 19mm collagen smoked casings, cook in the smoker at 140 for an hour, then 150 for a hour then 165 or so, then do a ice bath for 5 mins. Let them dry for a couple hours and still, no snapping. Chewy casings are kind of a bummer

I’ll take anyone’s advise, I’ve been doing three pounds at a time so I can tinker and try to figure it out.
Thanks! Eric

[AdamCA]

Elsos Your ice bath should be at 15-20 minutes, that should help.

[PapaSop]

Elsos
Where are your casings from? Had the same issue with casings that come from a kit. Won’t mention the name’s here but since getting casings from Walton’s the problem went away. You’re process looks fine. A little longer ice bath maybe but thinking those casings are not up to par.

[Elsos]

I think they are from L*M. Durable for sure.
Someone recommended sheep casings which I’ve never tried, but I was hoping to get a Duke’s style of meat sticks, but better

[Elsos]

I’ll get some Meatgistics a go, thanks for the idea!
I also realized there was pretty much zero smoke flavor on those sticks, maybe some washed off with the bath, but it seems like nothing could penetrate the casing.

[AdamCA]

Elsos I’ve never had the smoke flavor “wash off” during the ice bath. Most likely it’s the casings that aren’t in the best of shape.

[Elsos]

AdamCA
I have to agree that smoke flavor probably doesn’t wash off. But these casing tribulations are killing me. I’ve ordered some from Walton’s now and I’ll be able to compare for sure. Looking forward to more attempts, and being able still to eat my mistakes.

And I really appreciate the responsiveness of folks on this site, pretty nice to have a conversation about these things instead of me just reading everything I might stumble across!

So what are the Team orange or blue?

[YooperDog]

Elsos a friendly rivalry between Austin, Team Orange and Jonathon Team Boohoo Blue . You can select Team Orange under your settings. It provides some good banter among the community members. Go Team Orange

[Jonathon]

Elsos I am the leader of team blue and Austin is the leader of some other team…cant remember what! It all stems fro when we bought some new hats and I liked the blue one better and he liked orange, people got into it and we decided to create some teams. It is a fun distraction!