Another "I got a meat grinder for Christmas" thread

[Adam10mm]

My mother and stepfather bought me a meat grinder. Definitely home use size as it grinds only 1.5lbs per minute. It's a Deni 3400. http://www.amazon.com/Deni-3400-550-Watt-Premium-Grinder/dp/B001AQI7SU I'm saving up for a much larger grinder to start commercial deer processing, but this is plenty for home use.

Comes with a sausage stuffer tube so I'm going to be checking that out. I've still got about 20-ish pounds of pork grind from my pig I butchered. I picked up an Eastman Outdoors seasoning kit for bratwurst, beer & cheese, and Italian sausage which includes some hog casings. I've got some plans for some of the grind I have but I should have enough left over to use up that kit. I plan on buying another pig to butcher right away come January so I'll get to do it all over again.

[Lloyd Smale]

your welcome to come down and borrow my mixer and stuffer if you want. Im about done with them for a few months. You could even borrow the big grinder if it would help. In my experience stuffing, especially brat cases is a pain in the but with a grinder. Especially with a small grinder. If nothing else haul your meat down here and we can do it right here.

[Elkins45]

Since you have some pork you might want to consider making a batch of venison bacon. It's a 50/50 mix of ground pork and venison. You form it into loaves then smoke it, slice it and fry it up. It's good stuff! I bought the mix from Curly's Sausage Kitchen.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/mm35/elkins_pix/slicedbacon.jpg

[Adam10mm]

your welcome to come down and borrow my mixer and stuffer if you want. Im about done with them for a few months. You could even borrow the big grinder if it would help. In my experience stuffing, especially brat cases is a pain in the but with a grinder. Especially with a small grinder. If nothing else haul your meat down here and we can do it right here.
Thanks for the offer! I think with this one I might just muscle through it with the small grinder I have. The next pig I get in the next month or so I plan on allowing myself a lot more grind. Pig will be twice the size of the one I just butchered. I ended up with about 26lbs of grind and this next pig will be about 75lbs of grind. I'm just taking the backstraps, ribs, belly, and hind quarters for steaks/chops. The shoulder,neck, and jowls I'm going to grind. When I butcher that pig and have the meat scraps ready, I'll swing down and we can run it through your gear. Probably in a month from now.


Since you have some pork you might want to consider making a batch of venison bacon. It's a 50/50 mix of ground pork and venison. You form it into loaves then smoke it, slice it and fry it up. It's good stuff! I bought the mix from Curly's Sausage Kitchen.

I'll have to try that. Unfortunately I didn't get to kill any deer this season. I'll have to keep that in mind for next year.

[Gliden07]

My suggestion would be to go and buy a book with Sausage Recipes or search the web rather than buy kits. You should be able to buy all the ingridients for a recipe for a lot less than a kit. Two of the biggest ingridiants in most Sausage recipes/kits is Salt and Sugar both very inexpensive. And once you buy the most common ingridiants in bulk you will be able to make most sausage for the cost of the meat, casings and once in a while a spiecal spice.

And like I said in the other thread experiment and have fun!!

[alrighty]

I agree that making brats especially with sheep casings is a pain.I tried with a grinder/stuffer and failed miserably.I then remembered my jerky cannon that I used for ground jerky strips.I put the snack stick nozzle , 1/2 round and it worked pretty good.A lot less tore casings anyway.It still was slow as it only holds a couple of pounds but it works until I spring for a bigger stuffer.

[drinks]

Stuffing with the grinder is a pain and ,in my opinion, makes poor quality sausage, more like store bought hot dogs.
At least get a horn type stuffer, one with a gasketed piston, I have a 5lb vertical stuffer, LEM sells a fine one on Amazon for $145, the LEM has stainless steel drive gears, most other brands use plastic gears.
I bought mine before I knew the difference and have one with plastic gears, it has worked for 4 years but several people report the gears breaking after a short time.
For a really good book on sausage making, get
Great sausage recipes and meat curing, by Rytec Kutas from Amazon.
I make about 200 lb a year, mostly German-Czech style with plenty of garlic and hickory smoke it after curing.
Pork, deer, beef and goat all make nice sausage, if you have at least 15-20 % pork fat.
I do not like any more than a very small amount of beef fat, makes the sausage waxy.
I do use Prague #2 in my mix as I sometimes dry some of the sausage.

[Adam10mm]

Well this is all I have for now and can't afford a dedicated sausage stuffer. I have to save up for several months and get one. The sausage mix kit was an impulse buy. I've been looking up recipes and getting spices together to try different things.