Sausage stuffing - or how I got mad and threw a bunch of junk away.....

[Hijack73]

You learnd the hard way. Grinders are not stuffers and any company, family member or anyone on this forum trying to tell you they need a in reality check. They are diffinatly not stuffers. They are made for grinding PERIOD.

I would buy a horizontal stuffer as they tend to have less waist in the neck.

It was a very difficult lesson. I consider myself to be a pretty decent figurer outer and it's rare that I get mad enough to Hulk Smash before I figure it out, but it was like my plunger had been gripped in adamantium claws. I had to kind of wiggle it back and forth and once I freed it up maybe an 1/8 of an inch I could just get a fingertip under the lip to work it out. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Suction is a heck of a glue.

 

[SmokinEdge]

I'll know soon gents. Free shipping but it's apparently coming from Neptune. 3-6 weeks shipping.

Appreciate all of the inputs/help.

If it's crap, the lovely thing about the worlds biggest flea market is that returns are easy as pie

View attachment 690595

If you question it, then why go through the drama over 40 bucks? Your on the right track , how you arrive is up to you.

 

[indaswamp]

Hmmmm.....grinder to stuff sticks......

I'm glad you learned....Let us know know how much better that dedicated stuffer is.

 

[Fueling Around]

I did a thing.

I decided I'd get one of those little $8 packs of casing ends and pieces .... I started the rinse and soak process Saturday also. Today,
...

I use the salt packed pieces, but in my experience they need to soak at least a month in a 5% brine to re hydrate. PS Seasonings is the best of the salt pack with longer pieces and they are strung on a ring (hanks) as the wet packed casings. Again the month long soak at 5% brine which is also good for long term storage. I store all my casings in a 5% brine as that is more than adequate for fridge storage.

Too much to address at once but sounds like you tried stuffing the meat too warm, which might be why it wasn't wanting to run through the grinder.
...

I agree with that statement Doug.
You can stuff with a grinder, but you need to hand form the mix into a log and chill well to get them to feed better. The mechanical action of the auger will heat the mix enough to feed into the casing.
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Glad you didn't throw in the towel and ordered a dedicated stuffer. So much easier. Dig your discard from the garbage. The stuff tubes may be salvaged for others with a same sized stuffer.
Hmm what size is your grinder? I may be interested in the kidney plate if metal. You should be saving the kidney plate as it makes a terrific first coarse grind.

 

[Hijack73]

I use the salt packed pieces, but in my experience they need to soak at least a month in a 5% brine to re hydrate. PS Seasonings is the best of the salt pack with longer pieces and they are strung on a ring (hanks) as the wet packed casings. Again the month long soak at 5% brine which is also good for long term storage. I store all my casings in a 5% brine as that is more than adequate for fridge storage.


I agree with that statement Doug.
You can stuff with a grinder, but you need to hand form the mix into a log and chill well to get them to feed better. The mechanical action of the auger will heat the mix enough to feed into the casing.
______________________________________________________________
Glad you didn't throw in the towel and ordered a dedicated stuffer. So much easier. Dig your discard from the garbage. The stuff tubes may be salvaged for others with a same sized stuffer.
Hmm what size is your grinder? I may be interested in the kidney plate if metal. You should be saving the kidney plate as it makes a terrific first coarse grind.

#12 grinder

I have a plate I use for a rough coarse grind. I have no idea what it's called but I love it.

looks like this

 

[cptnding]

I'll know soon gents. Free shipping but it's apparently coming from Neptune.

I looked at the listing. It's sold and shipped out of Vietnam. The more expensive one is sold and shipped by Amazon itself. On LEM's site it is $189 but go figure. They run 20-40% off sales regular. Hope it works out.

 

[nlife]

I had a similarly frustrating experience with the KitchenAid grinder/stuffer attachment. I picked up a vertical stuffer the next day and the difference was night and day. It took me longer to grind the meat with the KitchenAid than it did for me to stuff it all. Needless to say, I returned the attachment and picked up a dedicated meat grinder.

 

[tallbm]

I did a thing.

I decided I'd get one of those little $8 packs of casing ends and pieces and just see if making a smoked sausage would be something I enjoyed. My grinder came with stuffer stuff, and I figured I'd be good to go on a 5lb practice run.

Saturday the bits and pieces showed up. I ground, seasoned, and vac sealed the sausage mixture. I started the rinse and soak process Saturday also. Today, I had a few hours before work and decided to stuff so the links could start to dry. The test patty was amazing. So was the second one......

So now I've got 5lbs all ready to go. I assemble the stuffing stuff on my grinder, get a longer end and piece on the horn, and I figure the rest of the process will just be me trying to control blowouts and tears.

So the hopper has about 2 lbs of this sticky meat goo on it and I start to plunge it down. This is where the fun ended. I was putting like 900lbs of torque on the plunger trying to get the mix to feed. It finally starts to come out of the tube. I go to pull my plunger up and it's basically locked into this sticky meat goo. I gotta be doing something wrong, but I soldier on. I get a nice rope about a foot long but it's taken me 15 minutes to get that much meat through the tube. So I says to myself, maybe this tube is too small. I was using the smallest one, but these casings seemed quite small. I clean ALL this crap up, put a larger tube on, reload the machine, same problem. Now I'm just ticked off. Another 20 minutes for approximately 10" of sausage.

Ok, I'll try a larger tube. Same result. This time I tapped out on a 6" link. F it - this will be enough for me to smoke and taste at least.

So I take all that sausage making attachment BS and throw it in the garbage. I was almost mad enough to chunk everything, but i put some expensive cuts into this 5lb batch. 75% pork (loin for lean, and enough belly fat to make it about 75/25) and a nice thick fatty ribeye for the beef element. And the patties were excellent.

I also took the time to dice up 7 oz of some Tillamook farmers reserve super extra sharp cheddar and some TM extra sharp white cheddar Sat to dry in the fridge. Thank God I had the foresight to not mix that in until I was sure I could get some to stuff.

Moral of the story, grinders are not stuffers. I saw that on here a few times during my research phase but I thought that surely I could muddle through this small batch.


So now I need something to stuff casings. I don't know enough yet to know if I want to pursue this (because what a pain in my everloving butt this has been so far) so I don't want to drop half a G note for some fancy electric job, or even know if I want to spend $175 for a fairly run of the mill vertical jobber on Amazon. I notice a few horizontal stuffers in the 3lb range for around $40-50 on Big Daddy Bezos' Online Flea Market and my question is this. Do they work well enough for me to decide if I want to actually pursue this? If they don't, I'll bite the bullet and get a vertical, but if they do, I'd rather go that route. Normally I'd just order one and if I hate it I'd send it back to Big Daddy Bezos, but WTH, why not dip into the collective knowledge here?

My end goal is that if I like it, I might do a 10-15 lb run every couple/3 months.

All is not lost as I do have roughly 2 lbs cased to smoke. I put a bit into a loaf pan (with cheese) and will cook that like meatloaf and I froze a lb for patties.

Appreciate all the help in advance!

You sure are getting that sausage making education but are on the right track now that you are getting a dedicated stuffer.
I just bought the 7 pound Hakka, I own a 5 pound Lem but wanted something that could do 5 pound batches for sure and was surprised at how FAST it is in comparison when cranking. Can't go wrong with either. I have a big giant one that holds 21 pounds or so but that is a 2 person beast to use when shoving 20 pounds of meat through a tube it takes 1 person cranking hard with it lol.

It was mentioned once but I figure I would reiterate to save you the next hair pulling headache.
Avoid those little $8 "home pack" casings that you bought. They are the odds and ends and will cause you more grief than necessary once you have the dedicated stuffer.
Buy a hank or get pre-tubed casings (come on a big drink straw looking thing making it easy to put on the stuffing tube) and you will get the REAL quality casings.

Finally, soak, soak, soak, and soak, your casings if you want them to be much easier to work with. Once I read about the proper process here I have majorly reduced the effort in fighting with cases that weren't pliable enough. In short, 5-7 days ahead of stuffing you will rinse your natural casings and then soak in a bowl of fresh water. Change the water every few days. Casings will be pliable and nice and easy to work with.
All instructions of "soak a couple of hours or 30 min before using" are setting you up for a hassle.

So now that you have a dedicated stuff, and if you switch to proper casings and casing prep, you will save yourself some major headache.
Then on to learning, fixing, and perfecting other parts of the overall sausage making experience :D

 

[DougE]

Buy a hank or get pre-tubed casings (come on a big drink straw looking thing making it easy to put on the stuffing tube) and you will get the REAL quality casings.

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find the pre-tubed to be a bigger PITA to load than just loading loose casings out of a hank.

 

[chopsaw]

I bought the pre tube for the first time a couple months ago . No thanks .
I stripped them all off the tubes and put them in my bucket of salt and water as they should be .

 

[DougE]

I bought the pre tube for the first time a couple months ago . No thanks .
I stripped them all off the tubes and put them in my bucket of salt and water as they should be .

I did the same thing.

 

[indaswamp]

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I find the pre-tubed to be a bigger PITA to load than just loading loose casings out of a hank.

Yep. Can't stand those pre-tubed casings....total PITA.

 

[chopsaw]

Hijack73 it took me awhile to take the advice on quality casings . That along with a dedicated stuffer makes a huge difference .
Just for reference ,
One strand of sheep casing ,

One strand of hog ,

 

[indaswamp]

Quality Casing company has some of the longest I've ever seen. I got one that was long enough to fill a regular length 3/4" stuffing horn twice!

 

[tallbm]

No love for the tubed casings aye lol.
They were a huge upgrade during my days of fighting with casings due to not knowing about the multi day soaking case prep.
I still use them but have no issue using a hank if I need that many. Quality of the casing (no odds/ends) has always been good for me on pre-tubed so definitely a good thing to know vs those crappy home packs.

Though I really like the end product you get with sheep casings, I have sworn them off. I've mostly eliminated all my case fighting issues, but feel like I take steps back when using sheep casings as I end up fighting them more and having more busts with them. If I need something that small, I've stuck with only cured sausage and cellulose casings. Cellulose is a dream to work with vs all casings but not an option for fresh sausage :D

 

[DougE]

Quality Casing company has some of the longest I've ever seen. I got one that was long enough to fill a regular length 3/4" stuffing horn twice!

They are located within driving distance but I'll be danged if I can find a local supplier ........ evidently Quality only sells wholesale.

 

[Culinary Otter]

No love for the tubed casings aye lol.
They were a huge upgrade during my days of fighting with casings due to not knowing about the multi day soaking case prep.

After using the tubed casings I will never go back to hanks.

 

[cptnding]

After using the tubed casings I will never go back to hanks.

I'm curious why? I'm just getting started and have not used either one. Trying to learn what folks like and what would work for me.
One question I had in my mind was if they are pre-tubed how do you flush them? Flushing seems to be a standard part of the process or is it not necessary with the tubed ones?

 

[DougE]

After using the tubed casings I will never go back to hanks.

I'm curious why? I'm just getting started and have not used either one. Trying to learn what folks like and what would work for me.
One question I had in my mind was if they are pre-tubed how do you flush them? Flushing seems to be a standard part of the process or is it not necessary with the tubed ones?

Curious as to why also. Provided you're using the right size horn, it takes no time at all to load loose casings. I can do it faster than jacking around with the pre-tubed ones.

 

[Culinary Otter]

I'm curious why? I'm just getting started and have not used either one. Trying to learn what folks like and what would work for me.
One question I had in my mind was if they are pre-tubed how do you flush them? Flushing seems to be a standard part of the process or is it not necessary with the tubed ones?

Less finnicky (they don't come in a tangled mess in the pack), easier to just soak just what I need, easier to repack if needed. You can still flush them.

If the price difference was crazy I'd go with hanks, but for the extra couple bucks I'll stick with tubed. I also keep some collagen on hand for emergencies.