I made some snack sticks this past weekend and wanted to get some input on the chewiness of the collagen casing. I stuffed them into 19 mm mahogany collagen casings and cooked them in the oven at 170 until they hit 160. Then I put then in an ice bath for 5 minutes and removed them and put them on the counter on an oven rack for an hour. After that I just put them in the fridge until this morning when i tried them. I was hoping for a more snappy bite to the sticks but the casings were a bit chewy. The meat was nicely adhered to the casing and there was no slippage, but i thought they would have more snap. Is there any recommendations that could be the reason why they were not very snappy?

Thanks