Editing Sausage casing (section)

=== Appearance ===

Natural casing sausages are distinguishable from collagen or cellulose casings because of their irregularity, although high quality sheep and lamb casings can be almost indistinguishable from a collagen casing as they have no noticeable imperfections. The main difference is in the way they are twisted and linked which impacts the appearance of the final product and makes it easy to differentiate a hot dog using natural sheep or lamb casing vs collagen casing. The size and usage of natural casings are impacted by the animal they are derived from, the narrowest being [[lamb and mutton|lamb]] followed by [[sheep]] followed by [[pig]] followed by [[Beef cattle|beef]]. The size range for lamb is 14&nbsp;mm to 28&nbsp;mm in diameter (which is how casings are graded), the size range for sheep is 16&nbsp;mm to 32&nbsp;mm in diameter, the size range for pig is 28&nbsp;mm to 58&nbsp;mm in diameter, the size range for beef is 43&nbsp;mm to 65&nbsp;mm, although beef bung caps (which are not derived from the small intestine) have a size range of 115&nbsp;mm to 130&nbsp;mm.<ref name=ripe />