I have the 30# LEM electric stuffer and have no issues stuffing sticks. You have to stuff them with the motor speed dial on the 2nd slowest setting or slower. Any faster than that and it is too much torque for the motor and it will trip the circuit breaker.
Maybe you'll get lucky, LEM also used a custom base diameter for the stuffing horns but luckily they went slightly smaller than the 2" horns and you can just modify one to fit in it, 21mm casings will barely slide over the smallest horn they gave you without the need to unravel them. If you want a horn for anything smaller than that this one isn't bad but the smaller diameter adds more pressure, just chuck the stuffing end into a drill and file down the base until it fits in the LEM plastic ring:
I'll give that a shot but feel like I'm usually pretty low, you know how much water you put into yours and how do you lube it up? I think they charged me like $300-400 for the motor, just call the parts department. My last motor would trip the breaker all the time, I think the new one was faulty and ended up murdering itself over tripping. The other issue I ran into with the new motor was that the pressure would build up and the gasket would pop off in certain sections, replaced the gasket but didn't fix the issue, no bends/dents in the canister from what I've seen and when I was on the phone with LEM it sounds like that's just something that happens and the guy pretty much suggested that I might be better off stuffing manually for smaller casings. Going to try the new motor this weekend but hoping it'll trip the breaker over popping the gasket as once the gasket pops you get to either reverse all the way and fix it or keep going and have like 1/4 of the meat flow up and around it and you have to grab it when it comes back up so it doesn't end up in the gearbox.
The last batch of sticks I made, I used between 0.75~1 oz. per pound of mince. No issues with stuffing.
Definitely got something going on....are you using the 1/2" or 5/8" tube? I've never had the gasket pop off. Building up too much pressure if you have mince blowing past the seal. I would suggest slowing the motor speed down until you get no blow by thru the o-ring seal.
I was originally using a 3/8" that I modified to fit and then switched to the 1/2" after it happened for the second time and still had the issue, had 2 oz of water per pound along with suregel, think the thing that might have put it over the edge was the high temperature cheese, probably adds a lot of friction to the stuffing tube, the guy that was helping me did a 5lb batch with the same recipe along with some diced jalapeno and shredded cheese instead of high temp cheese and it went through the 3/8" stuffing tube no problem.
I'll give that a try, thanks, was thinking I'd just skip the cheese going forward in stack sticks or try chopping it up into smaller chunks than the 1/4" cubes. Any benefits to using pre-shredded over buying a 4lb block and sending it through a rotary grater? Didn't know if this is a case where the cellulose coating is good.
I hate high temp cheese and never use the stuff. I use extra sharp cheddar cheese shredded when I do sticks. That and the 5/8" tube works for me. I use 23mm casing and yes, it will slide on the tube, but you have to work it on.
