On the Edge of Trying Sausage Making

[nlife]

Absolutely jump in! I found it to be a bit of a slippery slope though... I started with the KitchenAid attachment, then picked up a dedicated 11lb stuffer. Then my KA couldn't keep up with the stuffer so I bought a dedicated grinder. Through a number of unexpected events I now have 3 grinders and one stuffer. Obviously you don't have to go down the rabbit hole... but it's nice down here.

Like the others have mentioned, try starting with making up loose batches with store bought ground meat. Breakfast sausage patties and the like are easy to do. While I've found 10ish lbs or so is the upper limit for what I can handle in a day, you can taylor the batch size to whatever fits your needs.

 

[cptnding]

My Lem 5 lb. came with clamps . Not sure if they still do or not .

Bought one recently. Did not come with clamps.

 

[crazymoon]

BGSDT, Start anyway you want, I'm pretty sure you won't regret it !

 

[DougE]

Not a big deal but 5 lbs of meat spices and added water will not fit in a 5lb stuffer

Why I do my sausage in 2kg batches. Fits in the 5lb LEM and easier to measure spices/cure by the kg anyhow.

 

[Florida Chris]

cptnding , I got the LEM 5lb maybe 2 months ago and the 2 clamps were included.

Maybe give them a call?? I got mine thru Amazon, not LEM, FWIW.

 

[cptnding]

cptnding , I got the LEM 5lb maybe 2 months ago and the 2 clamps were included.

Maybe give them a call?? I got mine thru Amazon, not LEM, FWIW.

Thanks for the info! I'll follow up with them.

 

[Hijack73]

My LEM 5lb (ordered from Amazon - I thought I was getting a clone, but ended up being an LEM shipped from Optics Planet....) came with clamps but just cheap little C-clamps. The kind you can get at a Harbor Freight for like 2 bucks. I'd give the link but the price went up 50$ and now matches the LEM price.

I used a Kitchen Aid Artisan for a grinder for several years. I broke mine doing it - because that's my luck. All told, if I had to do it all over again, I'd buy a cheap little dedicated grinder and a cheap little stuffer. I like sausage, I don't like it enough to eat it every day, so the set up I have is fine. If I wanted to do more than 8-9 lbs (requires me to refill the 5lber once) I'd make serious case to up it to a larger one, but even 5lbs of smoked sausage would last me a month or 6 weeks.

It's delicious, I just don't eat that much of it. It's also much easier than I thought it would be. It's a bit messy, but all my parts fit in the dishwasher and I wash the towels I clean up with ;)

Pro tip - you can wash your aluminum parts in your dishwasher folks, but you CANNOT use dishwasher detergent or it will oxidize. You can use 2-3 drops of Dawn in the prewash cycle and another 2-3 in the main cycle and it cleans everything up shiny like new and doesn't flood suds out of the dishwasher door. Just use 2-3 drops or you WILL have a suds flood. You do need to rinse the ground particles off pretty well in the sink or the dishwasher might not get it all off. It doesn't have to be clean, just not chunky.

 

[DougE]

Bought one recently. Did not come with clamps.

I will send you the ones that came with mine. The table I clamp mine to is too thick to use them. I'm sure I could repurpose them, but with all the clamps I have around, I really don't need them.

 

[JckDanls 07]

Bought one recently. Did not come with clamps.

Is it the LEM mighty bite with the enclosed gears on top ?

 

[cptnding]

I will send you the ones that came with mine. The table I clamp mine to is too thick to use them. I'm sure I could repurpose them, but with all the clamps I have around, I really don't need them.

Thanks DougE ! After reading the opinions about them I don't think I want them either. The trigger clamps I already have work great.

 

[cptnding]

Is it the LEM mighty bite with the enclosed gears on top ?

Yep. That one with stainless tubes. Sounds like they are small C clamps so I wouldn't have used them anyway. Stuffer works great but I suck at it lol. I'll get more practice this summer when work settles down.

 

[Chris_in_SoCal]

My opinion from my use. I do not make them often so using a Kitchen aid grinder is no proplemo. It will do up to 10 Lbs without much of a worry.

I learned the hard way like many others here is not to use a stuffing attachment from Kitchen Aid or you will be posting here on what a PITA it is to use.

I bought a LEM 5Lb stuffer and it is great. It came with small C-clamps but I did not dare use them with my new granite countertop. I used larger clamps with rubber cushions like in pics above. It is very easy to use by yourself to stuff and feed out the sausages.

That said, whatever road you take make your own and you will not regret it.

 

[Winterrider]

I put these on my LEM 5#

Amazon.com

 

[Dustin Dorsey]

I've got the older LEM 5# stuffer with the open gears. It came with two little c-clamps that work fine. It came with plastic tubes that I've since replaced with stainless. The gears themselves are replaceable which I like (but I've never needed to do it. ) but I doubt anyone would have trouble with the enclosed gear stuffer.

 

[I-am-Chorizo]

Seeing all this Sausage making threads getting me enabled. I have not tackled this since would mainly be just making for myself and would not need much. I am looking at the Backyard Pro Commercial 5 lb. Sausage Stuffer (Vertical) and would be using my KitchenAid to grind. I know should get the LEM but really don't want to spend that much at this point. When I was working in Dallas use to stop by Hirsch's Meats who makes great fresh sausages but they getting $$ like everything and dont get down that way much anymore. Not even sure where to start at this point but will spend some time reading threads. Talk me off the Edge!

Just Jump in! this is one of the noblest pursuits you could undertake

 

[geostriata]

Yes, come to the dark side :)

 

[kurb]

Don't need either to get started. Buy some ground pork and make loose stuff like bfast or chorizo. I made brat burgers too. Did that for a few years. I have Hakka 7lb stuffer but fell in love with using a jerky gun to stuff.

Hello, novice here. Can you use jerky gun to stuff lamb casing for sausages. Thanks

 

[Dave in AZ]

Hello, novice here. Can you use jerky gun to stuff lamb casing for sausages. Thanks

Yes. The small diameter of jerky gun piston makes it very easy to extrude even thick farce into small tube. However, you might have an issue getting casings on gun, the tubes they come with are short and tapered. You'd want a long tube that still fit the jerkygun.

 

[SmokinEdge]

Yes. The small diameter of jerky gun piston makes it very easy to extrude even thick farce into small tube. However, you might have an issue getting casings on gun, the tubes they come with are short and tapered. You'd want a long tube that still fit the jerkygun.

Correct.
I have two tubes that I fashioned to fit my jerky gun. The clear one came from a pasta machine we had that would also stuff sausage and the white one came from an older hand crank grinder that I still have but don’t use. In both cases I had to carefully grind the base diameter down to fit the ring on the jerky gun. They work fine and I use them when I’m doing small test batches of a pound or pound and half. The gun itself doesn’t hold much meat and would be a PITA to stuff 5# although somewhat doable.

 

[Dave in AZ]

Correct.
I have two tubes that I fashioned to fit my jerky gun. The clear one came from a pasta machine we had that would also stuff sausage and the white one came from an older hand crank grinder that I still have but don’t use. In both cases I had to carefully grind the base diameter down to fit the ring on the jerky gun. They work fine and I use them when I’m doing small test batches of a pound or pound and half. The gun itself doesn’t hold much meat and would be a PITA to stuff 5# although somewhat doable.


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Nice mod! I was very surprised last time I used mine, how strong it's push is. I was able to just hand roll meat to a cylinder on cutting board, then slide load into the gun. thats how firm the farce was, no water added at all. It was quite clean and fast compared to other small batch methods.