I did this not too long ago for the first time as well. Turns out, in my book, sausage making is… well… disgusting. Believe it was Bismarck who declared that “people who love obeying the law or eating sausage should see neither one made.” I used natural casings and the recommendation was to rinse them thoroughly, since they are packed in salt. Rinsing out a sausage casing is, well, like rinsing out an intestine. One end is certainly going to try to flow down your drain, and when they are like 8′ long, its going to go a long way down your drain.. Very hard to keep control over.

I also was a bit disappointed by the Kitchenaid attachment–seemed like you had to press really hard to get the meat to flow out the nozzle, even with the screw supposedly forcing things through. Plus, I seemed to lose an entire sausage with left over meat gunk stuck in the attachment. I tried to pinch off and twist the links as they came out, which really didn’t work well–I do like your idea of doing the whole casing and then twisting them. Probably get a much better pack that way.

The chorizo I made was quite tasty, however.