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Natural Casings used in making sausages and heated bologna ‘s:

Cow natural intestine, sheep bladder and intestine, cow rumen, calf intestine. Below, the procedure of preparing natural cow intestine is explained:

After separating viscera from the body, the small intestine and the surrounding fat are removed by knife and are washed, while there may remain some small pieces of fat, because of that special machines are used and they soak the natural cow intestine into hot water to entirely remove the fats.

Other actions which are required to remove different layers of natural cow intestine are done after machine step, in which the natural cow intestine is tough and without mucus layer.

These natural cow intestine are checked for rupture and dirt, after that this natural cow intestine will be full of water or air will be blown in them (natural cow intestine), in this situation it Is easier to grade the casings by diameter and capacity factors, and if there may be any hole in this natural cow intestine it will be easy to recognize. The order of manual acts done on these natural cow intestine is in this way:

Firstly, these natural cow intestines are soak in cold water for 2,3 days. The external layers of are removed by backside of knife, so different layers are removed. In some countries, natural cow intestine is prepared manually, after cutting the natural cow intestine from the body and removing surrounding fat, the natural cow intestines are directly forwarded to the related factory. In the mentioned factory there are many 20 centimeters deep pools which natural cow intestines are soak in them, it is better to let water to cover all the parts of natural cow intestine. After 24-30 hours, fermented natural cow intestine will be flown on the water and after that the external serous and internal mucus layers are removed from natural cow intestine. For doing this act, bamboo woods are used which are resistant for water, in this procedure end of the bamboo woods are removed and this woods are placed between the natural cow intestines and intestines are pulled, this causes mucus to be removed but serous layer is removes. In some countries by increasing pressure they remove the serous layers to bit it is better to soak the natural cow intestines in tepid water then remove the serous layer softly.

After cleaning, the natural cow intestines are checked and graded, by flowing water by special pipes the possible holes will be visible, after measuring special diameters they are graded then salted. In order to do this step the natural cow intestines are mixed with granular salt and covered fully.

25 days before transporting natural cow intestines, they are soused and after that with high pressure they are dried. Then the prepared items must be checked, they should not smell bad or be too moisture, the color should be reflective purple and there must not be any tough gran.

History of natural casings:

sausages are the oldest and the most resistant type of processed foods.

In most of the references this product is mentioned as the first “ready food”. Since human started to eat animal’s digestive sections of animals are used for casing sausages.

During the last 1000 years, the person involves in this process were sacred people and this job wan an developed art. The people in this career developed this tradition so much, even everybody can do it, and families teach this art to their upcoming generations. Also this art was affected by market and accessibility to ingredients of sausages. The twentieth century made industrial revolution and it was continued by technology explosion. At the beginning the aim of mass production was the balance between quality and speed but gradually the quality moved toward the technology.

Meat processing industry faced with organized and vast competitions on carnage, processes and food immunization. Practicality and quality became normal and made competitions for food processors, and these products could pass the time experiments and had the required resistant.

Sausage productions is now a special business and this production is independently done and seen in “pop and mom “store in different sizes, meanwhile processors are producing million pounds of sausages weekly.

Nowadays, there are different types of natural and artificial sausage casing covers, such as collagen – cellulose. For natural sausage casings, there are quality and quantity information for the processors of this products.

INSCA tries to fill this gap, and most of the members of INSCA believe that high quality sausages must use natural casings. And there have been many discoveries about the benefits of sausages with natural cow intestine. The technology has provided many information about natural sausages but there are challenges for companies and processors for accessing the information and instructions of sausage process. All the information and manual of INSCS are available free or for purchasing, the ultimate aim is to encourage to produce high quality products.

Unique qualities of natural casings:

Natural casings such as natural cow intestine are the best choice for the producers because this type of casings absorb the smoke easily.

Natural casings have great Elasticity and good features during filling step. Instead of making the sausage stinky, natural casings such as natural cow intestine preserves the good taste of sausage.

Sausages with natural casings have great capability of biting, so they have been demanded by the costumers a lot.

Sausages in natural casings remain lush and crispy and this kind of casing gives them a great cook, the word “natural” is one of the most effective factors on the costumer’s decision.

This features leads the producers to provide high quality products and there is monotony in their taste.

 For the retailers, the Heatability feature means that the casing will catch the heat from the sausage and will lengthen its life time to look fresh.

Features of natural casing such as natural cow intestine:      

1. High degrees of Elasticity
2. Good absorption during feeling step
3. Different sizes of sausages make them much more attractive
4.  saussages with natural cow intestine casing has tiny cuts and lines at the end of the product