Stuffing Sausage Question

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fishawn

Smoking Fanatic
Original poster
Jan 8, 2008
736
10
Olympia, WA
I made sausage about 10 years ago with a crude stuffing system of a 10" piece of PVC pipe & a cut off broom stick handle. It worked good enough for an experiment, but is there any other options besides buying a stuffer? I also have a "jerky shooter" which I guess I could wrap the casings around the end & fill with the shooter. Any suggestions? Thanks!
 
You can stuff directly with your grinder, many of us do or have. Thats all I used for years. Various sized stuffing horns can be obtained for nearly any grinder.There are stuffing tubes for the jerky shooters as well. I've also tried pastry bags and tips, and a tube type, cake decorating device. It broke before the job was done. The original hand stuffers weren't much different than your PVC tube and dowel. Long, slow process to get much done. But back in the day they used them, growing and putting up food was about the biggest part of peoples lives.
 
I do have a Kitchenaid stand mixer. Do the grinder & stuffer attachments work pretty good?
 
The grinder is pretty efficient, you have to cut your meat into 1" cubes or so. The stuffing horns work, but it's slow and it mushes up the meat somewhat with the auger action. How much meat and how often are you contemplating processing? If it's going to be 10lbs. or more every week or two, I'd consider buying a stuffer. You can get a good 15lb. Stainless Steel stuffer from Northern Tool for $199.99, much better than the $300-450 other places charge for the same thing. I bought one and it works great! It takes longer to clean it than it does to stuff 10lbs. of product! I also bought a bigger grinder, a 1hp from Cabela's, but even that is slow stuffing and there's still mushing; that's why I bought the stuffer.
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I started with a glorified caulking gun that held a massive half pound of mix at a go. And I stuffed a lot of sausage with it, it was not fun - but birthday lists are great when you know what you want;-)
Get a good stuffer. The 5lb stuffers are so cheap over there there's no real excuse for not having one.
even if you are only making sausages once every couple months, having the right tool makes it a pleasure rather than a chore :-)
 
pops you have a nice setup there

i am making some apple sausage today. i only grind it and roll it into jimmy dean type rolls for fatty's

one day i may try to stuff em
 
The kitchen aid makes plastic hornes for about 20 buck, you get 2 sizes and a little retaing bar that gets clogged alot with stuff. but they tend to split the flange when you crank them on too tight. I don't know if they make metal ones, I am looking for some, I will let you know if I find soime.

good luck with you sausage
 
I have a 5 pound stainless steel stuffer I purchased on ebay for $50 plus shipping. I just use a c clamp to affix it to my countertop. I can add the spices, mix and stuff 10 pounds in 20-25 minutes. And the cleanup is SO easy. Put the pieces in the dishwasher and you are done.

I would highly recommend this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/Industrial-5lb-Meat-Sausage-Stuffer-NEW_W0QQitemZ140267542970QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item1 40267542970&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2% 7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

I also have a 20 pound cast iron one our family used at the slaughterhouse, but its so heavy and harder to clean I almost never use it unless I am making 50 pounds of kolbassi.

My uncle has one of the cast aluminum 2 1/2 pound horns and it is SUCH a pain in the *** to stuff with that thing. I always give him grief about using that thing. Slides all over the place, have to use wax paper at the plunger, takes the fun out of it.

Edit: looks like Pops has the same brand of stuffer I have but he has the 15 pound one. As I said above, I don't really need anything more than a 5, as it is just as quick to do 20 pounds in 4 batches. I would only recommend the 15 or bigger one if you are frequently making 30 pounds or more at a time.
 
yep that's nearly the same stuffer I have. And I don't need to clamp it down. I can turn the handle one handed and twist the sausages with the other. Very stable and effective bit of kit. And 1/3 the price I had to pay.
 
Btw, here are a couple tips for making sausage.

1. Don't try to stuff your casings too tight if you are going to link it.
2. when your casing starts to get air in it, tap it a few times with the back of a knife. This will put a tiny hole in the casing so the air can escape but meat will not escape. This will keep the sausage from ending up with all the white wrinkles on them, as you see in a lot of the pictures.
3. If you can, have the nozzle at table level, and put your hand on top of the sausage as it comes out and twist with your wrist to wind it in a nice spiral.
4. when mixing, mix by HAND. And when you think you are done mixing, mix for 2 more minutes, you aren't done.
 
All good info.........Thanks..........I think I will hold out for the 5# stuffer. I don't plan on doing a lot, I just need more smoking-cooking-eating hobbies to do & making sausage sounds pretty good!
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