What Is the Difference Between Artificial Casing And Natural Casing?

Natural casing is a sausage casing made from the casing of beef, pork, or sheep. Artificial casings are artificially manufactured according to their name, but are not necessarily free of animal products. Their difference can not only be determined by the production, they also have different properties. Both products have advantages and disadvantages.

In addition to the intestines, the stomach, bladder, or skin of animals can also be processed into natural casings. Before they can be used as a casing for sausage products, the muscle layer, and mucous membrane must be removed. For this purpose, the intestines are turned and also thoroughly cleaned. Depending on which animal they come from and which part of the intestine they are taken from, natural casings have different diameters. Saitling, made from the small intestine of sheep, is considered to be the highest quality natural gut.

Almost all natural casings are edible. This is usually not the case with artificial casings, depending on how they are made. If they are made of plastic, they are not edible. The situation is different with collagen-based artificial casings. They are made from a by-product of leather production and their properties are very similar to natural casings: they are odourless, transparent, and flexible.

Like natural casings, collagen casings are suitable for scalding sausage specialties, such as spicy merguez – particularly delicious as merguez with cucumber salad! However, they are more sensitive to heat: Sausages with collagen casings often have the disadvantage that they cannot tolerate the high temperatures and burst more quickly when grilled or roasted. Because they are permeable to vapour, smoke and moisture, collagen casings are just as suitable as natural casings for preservation processes such as drying and, within certain temperature ranges, for smoking.

Air-permeable artificial casings are also suitable for this. Such artificial casings are mainly used for boiled sausages with a larger diameter, such as cold cuts.

The production of artificial casings is cheaper than that of natural casings. The latter are much more complicated to handle and store, partly because they are perishable. In Germany, artificial and natural casings are roughly equal in terms of the proportions involved in the production of sausage products.