Method and means for stuffing natural casings with sausage emulsion

A method of stuffing natural casings with emulsion, comprising,

• taking a length of hollow natural casing material,
• inserting into the casing material an emulsion stuffing tube having a first end and a discharge end for extruding emulsion into a casing on the outer surface of the stuffing tube,
• slidably mounting a collar element on the stuffing tube adjacent an end of the casing material nearest the first end of the stuffing tube,
• slidably advancing a first end of the casing material on the tube in a direction towards the discharge end of the tube to telescope the casing into a shirred condition along a first portion of the casing material, while leaving a non-shirred portion downstream of the shirred portion,
• progressively advancing the non-shirred portion of casing off of the tube and filling the same with emulsion from the discharge end of the tube,
• placing a sensor in the proximity of the non-shirred portion of the casing to measure the distance between the sensor and the casing to detect whether shirred or non-shirred casing is present,
• connecting the sensor and a collar advancement means to a controller so that the collar will be advanced to slide the casing material on the tube when the non-shirred casing is detected, and stopping the advance of the collar when shirred casing material is detected.