Sausage shaping question

[johngaltsmotor]

Okay, I made a batch of snack sticks the other night. Because my sheep casings are a pain (lots of tangles), I decided to try using understuffed hog casings and squeezing them like landjaegers for 24hr. They looked good after pressing, but during smoking they relaxed and turned into cylinders (I think gravity just was too much for them). They were only stuffed about 65% so I would have thought they'd maintain shape.

Did they relax because the fermentation process for landjaegers densifies the meat and that allows them to hold the shape? I was hoping to end up with the same thickness as a snack stick to achieve a similar drying schedule so I was a bit surprised. My only thought is that because this recipe had 380ml of water in 8lb of meat that it was simply too squishy to support itself while hanging.

Comments?