some old fashioned dogs and fresh brats with QVUE

wow thats a nice batch thanks for the qview

Nice job. It definitely makes it easier to have a helper.

Great looking dogs and brats! Nice job!

Man, those are some good looking meat tubes!!!

Man they sure sound and look good!

Very nice job! That was definitely a big load for your CGSP. Points for the homemade sausage hanging rack.

I'm taking it for granted that you stuffed the dogs with the grinder too. If that's the case it is very hard to do with sheep casings being they are so thin. It may have helped if you would have added a bit more water to "loosen" up your product. All things said, they both look very good for your first effort

They look good man! The 100 bucks you will spend on a 5# stuffer from Gander or Northern tool will be some of the best money spent in the sausage making process. You can spend more of course, but I am happy with mine. Makes that end stuffing process a breaze instead of a chore. Cut my process time down by huge amounts.

Nice job on the sausage. Very nice indeed. I especially like your rack you made for your smoker. I think I will have to make on like that for my offset. Oh, before I forget. You mentioned that you had some blowouts with the sheep casings? I used to get blowout all the time, until I switched brands. Try a different brand once, it may just be the ticket.

WOW.... Thanks for The great post !!!

The Q-view speaks for it self...

As jimr said, when using sheep casings, it would have helped to add more liquid. That would have made it terribly difficult to stuff using your grinder though. A stuffer, would have no problem.

Did they mostly blew out when stuffing or twisting? If when stuffing, keep the casings pulled out toward the end of your stuffing tube so there is no friction with them sliding off the tube. I've put a long section of casing on before and after using half or more of what was on the tube, a lot of force was being applied to the casing just getting it to slide off from the back of the tube. Apply minimal pressure on the casings, just enough to hold back the casings so they come off the tube evenly. If when twisting, you can't stuff them so full that you don't have room to twist. This is especially true with sheep casings because they are so thin.

I'd suggest getting the smallest diameter hog casings that you can find for your hot dogs next time. Butcher Packer has 29/32mm. I like their size a lot (stuffed fairly loosely) for hot dogs that are not wimpy thin. You can stuff up to thin bratwurst sized, but if you try to make fat ones, they'll blow out too. 32-35mm are great for fat brats.

You can get a 5 lb stuffer from Grizzly for $70 bucks. This is what I and several other people on SMF have and I've really heard no complaints about it. http://cgi.ebay.com/Sausage-Stuffer-...3A1%7C294%3A50 As far as I know, it's identical to the ones from Northern Tool, etc... that cost around $100. They all have plastic gears in this price range.

You can get a 15 lb from Northern Tool that has metal gears for $230. (on occasion, I've seen it for $199) http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...3527_200333527

The bigger batches you make, the more I'd recommend getting a bigger stuffer. I wish I would've gotten a bigger one since I typically make 30 lb batches. The smaller stuffer works, but you have to reload it more often which means cranking it all the way back up.