Made a 5lb batch of Greg's sticks. Followed instructions. Internal temp never hit 152. The casings are very loose and tough to bite. Had them on the smoker for 6 hours. The meat inside tastes good. But the texture IOC the outside is off.
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There could be a few reasons. Where they natural or collagen casings? Collagen casings are usually tougher than natural casings. If collagen, did you get edible or non-edible casings?
The link below is a good guide in trouble shooting problems with sausage casings.
Sausage Casings 101 (http://blog.sausagemaker.com/search/label/sausage%20casings)
NOTE: Sausage maker recommends soaking collagen casing for 5 minutes; most others state do not soak collagen casings.
These were Lems collagen edible casings. 17mm.
It is like the meat shrank, but the casing didn't.
I'm guessing that maybe you smoked/cooked them at too high of a temperature and rendered out all of the fat.
Besides fat rendering out, in that link that I provided; some of the other causes of meat separating from the casings; it could be that you under stuffed them, and/or you may need to soak the casings for 3 - 5 minutes, but not any longer. Having enough moisture is important for the meat to cling to the casings.
I had a similar problem when I used edible casings too. After several tries it appears that I under-stuffed the casings and used too high of heat too soon. My last batch was perfect sausages and nice and firm/plump in the casings.