This is a question for those of you who have tried a sausage stuffer both as a kit for a meat grinder, and as a stand alone unit. In the past I had always lived within 100 miles of my parents, and it had always been tradition for our family to go there for processing meat, and smoking. For years and years we all used the same meat grinder. It is fairly large, I think a #32; it was originally a hand crank, but it has always been driven by an electric motor for us. That same grinder has also served to stuff sausages as well. For years and years I used it, and I honestly can not imagine a more perfect thing for the job. Either last year, or the year before we had broke the plastic casing horn, and being a holiday, we could not find where to buy one quickly. So dad took out his antique sausage stuffer, a curved press, looks like a powder horn. It's pretty simple. Meat is stuffed in it, and a ram pushes it out the other end. We used it, and it worked fine. It was messy, as a lot of meat got around the ram every push. It didn't have much volume, so you only got a handful of brats per push. I would use it again, but I would always choose the meat grinder over it.
Now being a state away, I'm looking to buy my own equipment. Early this week I was looking to buy a meat grinder, but was unable to find one made in USA in the store. I had one online in mind, and asked 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 bought the USA made grinder online, a smaller version of the one my dad has used for decades, and began searching for sausage stuffers. 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. All I ever used was a plain old grinder with a sausage making plate, and a tube. Slide the casing on (I've tried a few, and always come back to lamb), and I could have 6' of it filled in a minute or two tops. The grinder was not turning fast, it is driven by a slow gear box. I doubt it turns the grinder more than 1 RPM.
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.
My question to those of you who have used both a meat grinder and a dedicated sausage stuffer. Is a dedicated sausage stuffer worth the price? If I buy one, I'm keeping my eye out for a vintage one, and I think I should be able to eventually find one around $100. I require they be made in USA, I will not compromise on this.
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Originally Posted by GhostHawk
