Hog Casings

Hog Casings

The Sausage Maker is proud to offer Whisker-Free, Non-Dyed, Grade-A Hog Casings sourced entirely from healthy hogs in the USA! By far the most popular natural casing, they are also extremely versatile. Some popular sausages include Italian, Andouille, Kielbasa’s, Chorizo and more! We are the only place that offers hog casings from 29-32mm all the way up to 42-44mm. Okay, but what the heck are these as used for? What do I need to make an Italian sausage? What about fresh Polish sausage?

The sizes below are harvested from the small intestines of well-fed and cared for hogs, which is indicated by their Grade-A status because the intestines will be strong and durable if the hogs eat better quality feed. They are naturally lighter in color without the use of dyes because a pronounced yellow color often means poor-quality feed typical of Chinese hog casings. To further preserve the quality of our hog casings, our casings are also ‘hand-pulled’. An industry term meaning they are cleaned individually, by-hand, to carefully retain as much collagen and lining. This helps maintain tensile strength for stuffing, prevents creating pin-holes (which prevents ‘bursts’), and also increases elasticity by leaving more casing material which helps linking and hanging in smokers. Hand-pulling takes longer than ‘machine-pulling’ but more care is taken to keep the quality as high as possible for our customers.

29-32mm Hog Casings: The smallest of the Hog Casings we offer, these are perfect for making traditional wiener sausage, slightly smaller deli sausage like Italian and Bratwursts, but also great for chicken sausage recipes.

32-35mm Hog Casings: These are by far our most popular size available. Enjoy making Polish, Italian, and Bratwurst! This size is the most common for sausage most associated with grilled and pan-fried sausage.

35-38mm Hog Casings: Now, we are getting into some thicker, larger diameter sausages but not too big! These are popular for smoked sausage recipes like Andouille, Polish sausage (Kielbasa), Hungarian, Boudin and Medwurst sausage!

38-42mm Hog Casings: Larger casings can be a bit tougher to chew and are more prone to breaking when hanging in your smoker because they hold more meat which applies more pressure to stress-points like the contact point (hook/dowel). Smoking Tips: When wrapping rope sausage of heavier sausages keep the hanging ends shorter (no more than 2X 6” links on either side), if looping around a dowel be sure to first loosen the sausage at the contact/wrap section to relieve pressure when hanging.

42-44mm Hog Casings: Pepperoni, Polish Metka, Small-ish Summer sausage, Large Polish sausage, smaller ring sausages like Ring Bologna and Liverwurst.

55-60mm Hog Middles: Great for traditional, larger ring sausages such as Liver Sausage, Braunschweiger, Ring Bologna. These casings are very particular and unless you are familiar with them, its best to choose the Beef Middle equivalent. Hog Middles contain significantly more fat on the inside making them a more ‘pronounced’ smell, and much more curvy than uninitiated may be used to. These are Perfect for Ring Bologna, but will not make a straight Salami.