3/8" stainless steel stuffer tube & Trehalose

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dward51

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Nov 24, 2011
2,864
538
McDonough, GA
I see posts about 3/8" stuffer tubes for sticks being hard to find.  LEM makes several versions for different stuffers, and they constantly seem to be out of stock on their website.  I've been looking for a 3/8" tube for my Kitchener 5 pound stuffer.

I was in Macon for a meeting this week and figured I might as well make a "swing by" Bass Pro to kill some time before heading back to Atlanta.  Much to my surprise they had several sizes of the 3/8" stainless tubes on the rack (by sizes, I mean for different size stuffers).  And yes, they had about a dozen of the 5 pound sized models.

So if you have been wanting to order a 3/8" stuffer tube and never seem to find them online, you might check your local Bass Pro or Cabela's brick & morter store shelves if there is one near you.

And it fits the Kitchener perfectly.....



I also picked up a bag of Trehalose.  Not sure why, but I had never heard of it before and from reading the package it sounded interesting.  It was on sale so I figured why not....  Might have to experiment with this a little.


 
The problem with the LEM 3/8" stuffer tube is that it is NOT a 3/8" stuffer tube. 

Other than that, it is an excellent tube.  It is in fact a 1/2" OD stuffer tube.  If you

read the fine print they say it is 3/8" *ID*, but who cares about ID?  And in any

case, it is 7/16" ID (but again, who cares). 

1/2" vs 3/8" isn't a big deal unless you are trying to use 19mm and smaller collagen

casings.  In that case, they will NOT fit on this LEM tube unless you unravel the casing

sticks and thread it on like a hog casing.  If you've never done it, be prepared to spend a

LOT of time getting just a few feet of casing on the tube.  Good luck getting any more

than 10' of 16mm casing on it. 

I bought one of those LEM tubes, and ended up having a buddy saw off the tube part

and weld on the same length true 3/8" OD SS tube.  Now I can slide my 16mm-19mm

collagen casing sticks right on.  Save a TON of time when making lots of snak stix.

Collagen sticks of 21mm or more slide right on to the factory LEM tube, but I like

my stix thinner.  Normally I only ever use 16mm and 17mm.
 
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