Day 1 of 4 making sausage

[joshua brede]

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• joshua brede
• Jan 3, 2016

Another years sausage done and cooling to go into the freezer tomorrow. It's a ton of work (4 16hr days for 2 guys) but wouldn't trade it for the world.

 

[gary s]

Now that's a lot of sausage goodness

Gary

 

[joshua brede]

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• joshua brede
• Jan 4, 2016

Figured I would share this one of the finished product. It really shows the feat we achieved. There's almost 400 packages 1 pound or larger there. The vacuum sealers x2 got a workout yesterday.

 

[gary s]

Man oh man, is that nice, Let me send you my address so you can mail me some samples   Great job   

Gary

 

[driedstick]

Looks great Nice job 

A full smoker is a happy smoker

DS
 

 

[billdawg]

WOW! That is a ton of sausage! Looks like you can sit back and relax now.

 

[joshua brede]

Thanks everybody. It is a lot of work considering the tools I have to do it. And yes now time to relax a bit. Now I only have to cure/smoke 100pds of hams and 40lbs of bacon from the hogs I butchered 2 weeks ago!

 

[boykjo]

Nice work Joshua. looks like your hard work and perseverance has paid off with some great looking sausages. The only problem I see is you didn't make enough.. I'd be out by june...lol

Boykjo

 

[j spaulding]

I thought this was not a prom site. [emoji]128514[/emoji]

 

[basher]

So you use sheep casing for snack sticks and hot dogs? I used hog for my smoked sausage and the casings turned out pretty tough, sheep would fix this?

 

[basher]

Looks amazing by the way

 

[joshua brede]

So you use sheep casing for snack sticks and hot dogs? I used hog for my smoked sausage and the casings turned out pretty tough, sheep would fix this?

thanks.
The sheep casings were substantially softer than the hog casings. It's all I will use from now on. I got mine from butcher packer and barely noticed the stuffing difference between them. You do need to be careful not to overstuff them or you will have a hard time linking them later. I started linking them right out of the grinder because you could stuff them a little tighter and they didn't break.

 

[smokin' burt]

 My one question for everybody is how much better do stuffers work? Doing summer sausage with the grinder is fine but the more hot dogs, brats, snack sticks I do its pretty slow. Just not sure it's worth a grand for a decent stuffer

The bottom line is... you get what you pay for. I personally don't recommend ANY of SausageMakers stuffers. I have had problems with my 15 lb.  "plastic" geared one, and have resigned myself to the fact that if it needs to be repaired again, well, they can just keep the POS!!... For someone like yourself who's making the volume of sausage/brats/dogs and sticks that you make, I would look into something more commercial. Check out Koch and F.Dick stuffers. Yea, you're gonna pay a lot more but it's a lifetime investment in quality equipment that will continue to serve you well far beyond the China made products all the way!! If I made the volume of sausages that you do... I would definitely invest in a quality stuffer! Just my humble opinion....

PS. KUDOS on the sausages you made!! Awesome job Bud!!

SMB

 

[kovaku]

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• joshua brede
• Jan 2, 2016

Snack sticks are ready for tomorrow.
I have 1 helper and do everything with a 1hp cabelas meat grinder. No stuffer and use a drill with a mud mixer for mixing in Rubbermaid tubs. The meat grinder is the workhorse and is worth its weight in gold. Have stuffed about 500lbs this year. My one question for everybody is how much better do stuffers work? Doing summer sausage with the grinder is fine but the more hot dogs, brats, snack sticks I do its pretty slow. Just not sure it's worth a grand for a decent stuffer

Below is the stuffer I use.  I can get 25lbs of ground sausage in the hopper and if you have a helper it will cut your stuffing time by half.  I used to use my grinder like you and I was aggravated at how long it was taking to stuff summer sausage especially.  Now I can pump out the sausage at a much quicker pace.  I cut my stuffing time by more than half.  IMO a good stuffer makes sausage making more enjoyable.  The one drawback that I have found is the stuffing horn isn't long enough.  I can fit about a 8ft piece of casing on the horn but I wish I could fit about 50ft at a time. All in all the stuffer is well made and easy to clean up.  I just put a little crisco around the seal on the piston and go for it.  This stuffer also has a valve in the piston to let the air out while cranking.  You will get some air bubble out the horn but not near as much as I used to using my grinder and having to push all that sticky meat down through the grinder feeder. For as much sausage as you make you may be interested in the 32lb model. 

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• kovaku
• Jan 5, 2016

 

[joshua brede]

The bottom line is... you get what you pay for. I personally don't recommend ANY of SausageMakers stuffers. I have had problems with my 15 lb.  "plastic" geared one, and have resigned myself to the fact that if it needs to be repaired again, well, they can just keep the POS!!... For someone like yourself who's making the volume of sausage/brats/dogs and sticks that you make, I would look into something more commercial. Check out Koch and F.Dick stuffers. Yea, you're gonna pay a lot more but it's a lifetime investment in quality equipment that will continue to serve you well far beyond the China made products all the way!! If I made the volume of sausages that you do... I would definitely invest in a quality stuffer! Just my humble opinion....

PS. KUDOS on the sausages you made!! Awesome job Bud!!



SMB

Thanks.
I was looking at the cabelas 30lbs with the electric motor. Just because this grinder has been the best thing I've ever bought for processing. Insanely pleased with it. But I've heard nothing but bad things about there stuffers. And your getting close to that 1k range so why not buy a real good one. I'm pretty much set on electric because then I have the option to do it by myself. 3 years ago I got stuck doing it all by myself and it took my 5xs longer than it does with 2 people. Took me 20 days. But my smoker was also a smoky mountain 30in tall 14in wide propane smoker. I now have 15xs that capacity

 

[jhamik99]

Care to share your hot dog recipe?

 

[basher]

Care to share your hot dog recipe?

Or all of them haha

 

[joshua brede]

Care to share your hot dog recipe?
My buddy made these first I tried them and loved them. Super simple.
I used hi mountains hot dog seasoning. What I did different from the recipe is went 2/3 venison and 1/3 pork. 17pds venison, 8pds pork,and added 3.5lbs shredded cheddar cheese. And used sheep casings instead of hog casings. Way better casings. I've made hot dogs before and can't beat there's. So I don't actually have a recipe it came from a box.

 

[joshua brede]

Oops not sure what happened there

 

[SmokinAl]

I may have read it wrong, but I thought you used collagen casings for the hot dogs. I have always used sheep casings, but as you say they are a little hard to work with. My question is, if you used collagen, weren't they a little chewey? If not they are so much easier to use.