Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I've asked this question on some other non-cooking related forums with horrible results. That brings me here, which this seems to be the best group I could find for working with meat. I'd like to begin with some background of myself. I'm not a chef, or even a self proclaimed home chef. I'm a hunter, fisherman, and I love good food. As a result, a lot of what I ask about will revolve around wild game. I've never bought beef, or chicken from the store, and processed it farther. I hardly ever buy pork regardless. About the farthest I'd like to try is smoking a beef brisket. I buy as little meat as I can, and a lot of the year I don't buy any at all. I hunt a number of things. Of course deer, but mostly small game like ducks, geese, rabbits, squirrel, grouse, pheasant, and some other big game like black bear and antelope. Hopefully I'll draw an Elk tag this year too. I also love fish, I definitely eat more fish than the average person. The thing with fish is that I don't do much with it as far as processing. Once in a great while I'll grind some up for patties or fish balls, but that doesn't take much thought. Fish fillets work great as is, and shred up just fine for anything you want shredded meat for. I do love sushi, but again, it is nothing but sliced fillet's.
We have always processed our own meat. I grew up helping my dad run the grinder. It really shocked me when I first learned that a lot of people shoot an animal, and then drop it off at a butcher. There's nothing wrong with that, but you're missing out on at least 1/2 of what hunting and fishing is. I had always lived close enough to my parents that I, and the rest of my family, would always do our work there as far as grinding, stuffing sausage, and smoking. Now I've moved out of state, and I've got my own equipment. In all those years dad has had the same grinder that we all used.
The reason I bring this up is that in all that time, we had been making everything we could imagine with that grinder, which is a #32 Chop-Rite, that he has turned by an electric motor via gearbox and chain, and it turns the grinder at a rather casual pace. We did try other things over time, but found them less than ideal. A perfect example is the vintage sausage stuffer we had to use one year when we accidentally broke the plastic casing horn that went on the grinder. This stuffer was the curved horn shaped style, with a handle and a pusher. It doesn't get much simpler than that. We used it, and it did work, although I was none too impressed. It only held so much meat, and the pusher was such a loose fit in the bore that a bunch of meat got past it every time. We went back to our meat grinder, which all we do install the sausage stuffing plate and casing horn. I don't use the blade, although I doubt it makes much difference. For those who don't know, the sausage stuffing plate replaces the normal grinding plates with one that it cut out to the absolute maximum. Its purpose is to guide the end of the auger, but takes any kind of grinding out of the equation. It always varies how much meat we put into the grind from a deer, but I think 30-40 pounds, which includes some pork for fat, is a fairly realistic guess. With that grinder I can take a pot full of the deer meat, and have it in casings in maybe 45 minutes to an hour depending on how good I am with sliding the casings on that day. It sure doesn't take long. I can do this myself, as the grinder is electric, although two people is always nice so you don't have to watch the hopper.
One day I was looking to buy a meat grinder in a local store, but was unable to find one made in USA there. I had one online in mind, and asked an employee about a sausage stuffing set for a #12 grinder. The guy at the store looked at me like I was growing horns out my forehead. The short version is that they didn't sell them, and he is really confused why anyone would willingly use them. He did have a few dedicated sausage stuffers he wanted to sell, all made in China. I left, went home, and bought the #12 Cast-Rite grinder that was online for a good price. I then decided to do a search for stand alone sausage stuffing presses. I was really surprised to find a huge number of people have the same opinion the guy from the store did. The more searching I did, the more people I found that thought making sausage through a meat grinder is a very slow and tedious process. Here's the thing that has got me, most videos that show sausage making with a grinder are insanely slow. I really don't get it. This is the danger of the internet. Suddenly decades of complete success and contentment has got me wondering if I am missing something. There's no way I'll buy one of those horn style sausage stuffers. I am intrigued by these big vintage presses, often doubling as fruit presses. The most common seems to be made by Enterprise, and I've seen reference that they held the patent originally. There are at least two modern version that are near copies. One made by Cast Rite, which appears an identical copy. I almost choked when I saw the nearly $600 price tag. The other is a stainless steel version made by The Sausage Maker, with an also very high price of $280. There are a lot of similar made in China sorta-copies with plastic gears and parts as well. I require they be made in USA, I will not compromise on this.
This is what brings me here. I want to be perfectly clear, I am not looking for recommendations on what sausage stuffers you have used, or where I should look. I only want to hear from people who have used BOTH a grinder and a press to stuff sausage. I want to know what makes a stand alone press like an Enterprise 4lb better than using a grinder. Is there any reason a press is easier to use with one person vs a grinder? I've found tons of threads on sausage stuffers online already, but I have not found a single one where someone has compared both a grinder and a press.
We have always processed our own meat. I grew up helping my dad run the grinder. It really shocked me when I first learned that a lot of people shoot an animal, and then drop it off at a butcher. There's nothing wrong with that, but you're missing out on at least 1/2 of what hunting and fishing is. I had always lived close enough to my parents that I, and the rest of my family, would always do our work there as far as grinding, stuffing sausage, and smoking. Now I've moved out of state, and I've got my own equipment. In all those years dad has had the same grinder that we all used.
The reason I bring this up is that in all that time, we had been making everything we could imagine with that grinder, which is a #32 Chop-Rite, that he has turned by an electric motor via gearbox and chain, and it turns the grinder at a rather casual pace. We did try other things over time, but found them less than ideal. A perfect example is the vintage sausage stuffer we had to use one year when we accidentally broke the plastic casing horn that went on the grinder. This stuffer was the curved horn shaped style, with a handle and a pusher. It doesn't get much simpler than that. We used it, and it did work, although I was none too impressed. It only held so much meat, and the pusher was such a loose fit in the bore that a bunch of meat got past it every time. We went back to our meat grinder, which all we do install the sausage stuffing plate and casing horn. I don't use the blade, although I doubt it makes much difference. For those who don't know, the sausage stuffing plate replaces the normal grinding plates with one that it cut out to the absolute maximum. Its purpose is to guide the end of the auger, but takes any kind of grinding out of the equation. It always varies how much meat we put into the grind from a deer, but I think 30-40 pounds, which includes some pork for fat, is a fairly realistic guess. With that grinder I can take a pot full of the deer meat, and have it in casings in maybe 45 minutes to an hour depending on how good I am with sliding the casings on that day. It sure doesn't take long. I can do this myself, as the grinder is electric, although two people is always nice so you don't have to watch the hopper.
One day I was looking to buy a meat grinder in a local store, but was unable to find one made in USA there. I had one online in mind, and asked an employee about a sausage stuffing set for a #12 grinder. The guy at the store looked at me like I was growing horns out my forehead. The short version is that they didn't sell them, and he is really confused why anyone would willingly use them. He did have a few dedicated sausage stuffers he wanted to sell, all made in China. I left, went home, and bought the #12 Cast-Rite grinder that was online for a good price. I then decided to do a search for stand alone sausage stuffing presses. I was really surprised to find a huge number of people have the same opinion the guy from the store did. The more searching I did, the more people I found that thought making sausage through a meat grinder is a very slow and tedious process. Here's the thing that has got me, most videos that show sausage making with a grinder are insanely slow. I really don't get it. This is the danger of the internet. Suddenly decades of complete success and contentment has got me wondering if I am missing something. There's no way I'll buy one of those horn style sausage stuffers. I am intrigued by these big vintage presses, often doubling as fruit presses. The most common seems to be made by Enterprise, and I've seen reference that they held the patent originally. There are at least two modern version that are near copies. One made by Cast Rite, which appears an identical copy. I almost choked when I saw the nearly $600 price tag. The other is a stainless steel version made by The Sausage Maker, with an also very high price of $280. There are a lot of similar made in China sorta-copies with plastic gears and parts as well. I require they be made in USA, I will not compromise on this.
This is what brings me here. I want to be perfectly clear, I am not looking for recommendations on what sausage stuffers you have used, or where I should look. I only want to hear from people who have used BOTH a grinder and a press to stuff sausage. I want to know what makes a stand alone press like an Enterprise 4lb better than using a grinder. Is there any reason a press is easier to use with one person vs a grinder? I've found tons of threads on sausage stuffers online already, but I have not found a single one where someone has compared both a grinder and a press.
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