Size casing for venison snack sticks

[firerescue220]

I am looking to buy the proper size casings for snack sticks and am a bit confused. I have 1/2, 5/8, and 3/4” grinder tubes. Can someone make a recommendation on which tube I should use and what size casing? Brand new at this and I appreciate the help

Rich

[processhead]

A half inch tube will work with 19 mm collagen casings, but you may find they are a snug fit when the casings are in their compressed form. If they they are too tight to slide on easily, you can decompress them and they will slide on to a 1/2 inch tube with no issues.

If you are using a grinder to stuff snack sticks, you may that a grinder doesn’t provide uniform filling of the casing. Many home processers upgrade to a sausage stuffer because it will give far superior results.

[glen]

firerescue220 From the Walton’s site:
WHAT SIZE OF STUFFING TUBE FOR COLLAGEN SAUSAGE CASINGS?
Because collagen sizes may slightly vary by manufacturer, these are only applicable for Walton’s Collagen Casings and Walton’s Stuffing Tubes. These are the largest stuffing tubes that fit each casing size:
15mm Collagen – 10mm Stuffing Tube
16mm Collagen – 10mm Stuffing Tube
17mm Collagen – 10mm Stuffing Tube
18mm Collagen – 10mm Stuffing Tube
19mm Collagen – 12mm Stuffing Tube
21mm Collagen – 13mm Stuffing Tube
23mm Collagen – 13mm Stuffing Tube
26mm Collagen – 16mm Stuffing Tube
30mm Collagen – 19mm Stuffing Tube
32mm Collagen – 22mm Stuffing Tube

If you have a true 1/2 inch tube it equals 12.7mm so 21mm casing would be a sure fit.
That would be on the large size of snack stick but very doable
Here’s a tip, you can put 19mm casings on a 1/2 inch tube, which is what I have. What you do is slightly lube your tube and pull out the casing from the stack and then bunch it up on the tube manually
I’ll post this anyway but look like Paul beat me to it

[Departing Contestant]

21mm is a nice size snack stick, good bite, make a meal out of a stick

[firerescue220]

glen extremely helpful. Great info.

Thank you very much!

[firerescue220]

Departing Contestant Excellet! Thank you very much.

[Dave in AZ]

firerescue220 all great info above. I will add that using a 1/2" or 12.7mm outer diameter tube, you may find that your sausage mix is very hard to stuff thru that small size, especially if you are using a grinder to stuff. With a grinder, you may find it is just churning the meat in there until you put pressure on top to force it out thru the tube… I did. 32mm sausage was ok, but 19mm was impossible with 1 person and a 1hp #22 grinder. That is the event that convinced me to buy a stuffer

Here are some tips to help make it possible to stuff the small casings. With a good stuffer not all these are needed, but these tips will make it easier for you:

1. You can use more water, and will need to. I used a full 24% water on my last venison beef batch, and they were great. On a recent podcast, jonathon said it was required to use 1.5L in 25lb batch with new elec 15lb stuffers, and 19mm casings on a 13mm tube. That was to make it work. That is 13.2%. An electric stuffer is like 10 times easier than using your grinder, so you can see why maybe more.
2. Your goal is to ensure the mix is at maximum fluidity. That means anything that binds up the mix early is bad.
3. Don’t grind and cure meat one day then stuff next, you need to stuff ASAP after grind sobit doesn’t set up.
4. Don’t add cure and let it sit, this binds up the meat. Stuff immediately after mixing meat with salt, spices and cure. You can let the stuffed sticks cure overnight. If you want to smoke immediately, I recommend adding cure and then ALSO a cure accelerator so you can start cookingnthe same day. I use 1 vitamin c 1000mg tablet per 1kg meat/water. Or Walton’s sells sodium erythorbate.
5. If you use a lot of water, which you often need to with small say 10mm tubes into 16mm cases, you’re going to need something to bind it. Walton’s sure gel works decent. Or instant nonfat dried milk which I like. Don’t use the carrot based super binds, it will lock it up too much. Mix until good sticky protein extraction but not too much.
6. Beef and venison bith absorb more water than pork, so with high water batches use more of those two.
7. The extra water will evaporate out during cooking and smoking if you keep temps down 180 to 200. If you sous vide, the water gets locked in, but you can still dry them more if desired by just leaving on tray in fridge a few days.
8. Heres a mix for reference that I know was super easy to stuff and came out perfect: 1.5kg venison, 0.4kg pork fat, 0.85kg 80/20 beef, about 6 lbs total. Walton’s Willie’s snack stick seasoning 159g. 6.8g cure1. 3 vitamin c tablets, 1000mg each. 76g nonfat dry milk. 650ml water was 24%… started with less and just added until stuffable. 16mm smoke collagen casings thru 10mm tube, 3.5 hrs on traeger smoker to 142 internal then sous vide to 160.

[firerescue220]

More fantastic info. Thank you so much!