One of my hobbies is restoring old cast iron and other meat processing equipment. I have done a few of these meat stuffers over the years and usually put them to work making sausage after they are finished.
This one came to me a couple of weeks ago after I spotted it on FBMP. It is an 8 quart unit and had all the pieces including the fruit/lard press basket and both plates. One thing that makes this style more desirable for sausage making is the removable tub. Many of the Enterprise-style stuffers were one piece assemblies, weighed a ton, and were kind of a pain to clean. This design with the removable tub was used by a hardware company based in St. Louis during the latter part of the 19th century.
When I clean any cast iron, I use an electrolysis tank, which works pretty well at removing rust, carbon, old grease and paint. After the tank, I hit it with a pressure washer and a brush to remove any remaining crud, then clean with hot water and detergent.
After its clean it gets seasoned with oil and a couple hours in a hot oven.
Since I use these for stuffing sausage, I make a couple of modifications to make it more user friendly. First I add a poly disk to get a better seal between the plate and the tub. This greatly reduces blow-by as the plate pushes meat through the cylinder.
Next, I remove the old crank handle and use an adapter to allow using a 1/2 inch drive ratchet with an extension for more leverage. This greatly reduces the effort to crank out small diameter snack sticks.
This one came to me a couple of weeks ago after I spotted it on FBMP. It is an 8 quart unit and had all the pieces including the fruit/lard press basket and both plates. One thing that makes this style more desirable for sausage making is the removable tub. Many of the Enterprise-style stuffers were one piece assemblies, weighed a ton, and were kind of a pain to clean. This design with the removable tub was used by a hardware company based in St. Louis during the latter part of the 19th century.
When I clean any cast iron, I use an electrolysis tank, which works pretty well at removing rust, carbon, old grease and paint. After the tank, I hit it with a pressure washer and a brush to remove any remaining crud, then clean with hot water and detergent.
After its clean it gets seasoned with oil and a couple hours in a hot oven.
Since I use these for stuffing sausage, I make a couple of modifications to make it more user friendly. First I add a poly disk to get a better seal between the plate and the tub. This greatly reduces blow-by as the plate pushes meat through the cylinder.
Next, I remove the old crank handle and use an adapter to allow using a 1/2 inch drive ratchet with an extension for more leverage. This greatly reduces the effort to crank out small diameter snack sticks.
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