Method and means for stuffing natural casings with sausage emulsion

A method of stuffing natural casings with sausage emulsion, comprising,

• taking a plurality of natural casings of different lengths and diameters,
• pre-loading each of the casings on elongated hollow open ended sleeves shorter than the casings and having a diameter less than the casings by telescoping the casings on the outer surfaces of the sleeves, and closing an open end of the casings over the open ends of the sleeves,
• slidably mounting the sleeves on the open end of a meat stuffing tube of a sausage encasing machine,
• extruding meat emulsion through the stuffing tube into the casing mounted on the sleeve until the sleeve is slidably removed from the tube caused in part by the movement of meat emulsion entering the casing,
• removing the sleeve from the stuffing tube,
• repeating the use of the sleeve by preloading the sleeve with another natural casing, and
• sequentially filling the casings on the preloaded sleeves with meat emulsion in accordance with the foregoing steps.