About a month ago I made 40# of Braunswieger. I used 32mm smoked collagen casings. After 2 hours in the smoker drying at 130 degrees, when I looked in all my meat was laying on the catch tray. Upon pulling out the mess I had noticed I had no evidence of any casing whatso ever. Seriously you could not find any trace of casing. Then last week I made snack sticks with the same outcome. I had previously used these casings to make smoked kielbasa and snack sticks with no problem. I only had the casings for four months and they were stored in the fridge in the original unopened package. Any ideas what caused the failure? I thought maybe excessive moisture, but my recipes were identical to what I processed 4 months earlier.

Jonathon Braunsweiger was pork liver, beef liver, 40% meat 60% fat pork grind, salt, dextrose, cure #1, NFDM, onion powder, pepper, marjoram, ground cloves and ginger. I cured the liver in a wet EQ brine (water, salt, dextrose and #1 cure). After brine I ground the liver and emulsified it with a food mill. Mixed spices with 2 cans of Straub Dark Ale added to farce mixed well and stuffed into 32mm smoked casings. Placed into 130 degree preheated smoker to dry, after 2 hours went to increase the temps and found everything all in my catch pan. Snack sticks were Salt, dextrose, cure #1, NFDM, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, cheddar cheese and spicy V-8 juice. Mixed all except V-8, let age for 48 hours in fridge, mixed again adding v-8. Stuffed into 19mm collagen casings, after 2 hours at 130 degrees had the same dissolved casing result. The sausage shop that carries your casings in my area said I must have got them to wet. I come home and took a piece of casing and put it in water for 3 days. It swelled up and got kind of rubbery but didn’t dissolve.

JohninPa I did this about a year ago, stuffer broke. The only issue I had was my binder must have been affected by the freezing process as the fat in my sticks rendered out. Stayed inside the casing, tasted good just didn’t look good with fat between the casing and meat.

lamurscrappy Dissolved as in you cannot find any trace of a casing in the piles of meat in the catch pan in the bottom of my smoker. I have had casings break in the smoker and they just fall into the catch pan in a snaky pile, still intact and looking like a stuffed casing.