| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Contadino |
Meat grinder & sausage stuffer...Hello,I'm just about to embark on my first foray into the world of sausage and salami making and need some advice on equipment. Do combined meat grinders and sausage stuffers work? I've seen this sort of thing.... http://www.northerntooluk.com/products.asp?partno=168610E I appreciate that electric machines may be easier, but is it significantly so? In terms of quantity, I'd like to make about 30 salami once a year, and sausages as a treat maybe once every couple of months. Many thanks, Jeremy. |
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| judith |
That looks a lot like the Porkert, which is what I use for mincing. We did about 40 lbs of sausages a couple of weekends ago, and it worked fine.
Can't vouch for the stuffing action though, as I use my Kenwood for that. |
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| sean |
I like the suggestion that if you want to buy this you may like a first aid kit too.
Any particular reason for hand-mincing but machine-stuffing, judith? |
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| judith |
We've tried various combinations, and that works best for us. I seemed to be forever degunking the screens on the Kenwood mincer, whereas the little blade in front of the Porkert screen is very effective. It also means you can have someone mincing while another person stuffs! |
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| Contadino |
Time's not really an issue for me. If it takes me all day to do half a dozen sausages it's not a problem.  And I think I'll have a first aid kit on hand the first attempt.
So have you tried stuffing using your manual machine, Judith? Did it work? Many thanks, Jeremy. |
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| judith |
Unfortunately it didn't come with a stuffing attachment, so I can't say. I can imagine you would need at least one extra hand to fill the hopper, turn the handle and control the filling of the skins, though. I do have one of those "sausage guns", as my nephew calls it. That is rubbish if you are doing any more than a pound or so of sausages. |
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| Contadino |
Well, a bit more digging around, and according to the experts on sausagemaking.org, the meat doesn't come out of the nozzle at a uniform rate with these manual grinders/stuffers, risking irregular-shaped sausages.
Anyway, I think I'll give it a try and if I get really into sausagemaking maybe I'll save up for a better manual stuffing machine. |
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| judith |
Is that really a problem? They all taste the same, even the irregular ones. |
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| Contadino |
I suspect that given it's my first attempt, they'll be rather irregular shapes regardless of the equipment I use. It certainly won't be a problem for me. | ||||
| Rob R |
I use an electric mincer (that was bought form Northern Tool) for mincing, tried it once for stuffing but the worm was too quick & ended up mashing the meat up until it resembled something like the cheap sausages you get in the supermarket. 
I use a very old hand cranked stuffer & uniform sausages are just a case of keeping it fed as you crank. |
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| dougal |
Re: Meat grinder & sausage stuffer...
Spiral feed (like a mincer) doesn't work well for sausage stuffing. (It might if you had a vast pressure fed feed hopper, but you don't get that on domestic spiral-feed stuffers). Working such things needs a third or fourth hand to keep the hopper full. When I say "doesn't work well" I mean two specific problems: -- you tend to get a lot of air bubbles (some pretty big) -- and you smear out the texture (which is an important aspect of salami!) A piston stuffer overcomes these problems, and makes stuffing stupidly easy and pretty swift. But it costs more like £75 for a 2kg/5lb capacity thing with a simple geared drive to the piston so you don't need an absurd amount of force applied to the handle. A piston stuffer is infinitely preferable to a screw-feed mincer/stuffer. But it has a price! The alternative for salami is to use a traditional funnel and avoid small casings. The handle of a wooden spoon (or similar) is then used to ram it tight. |
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| Behemoth |
Agree | ||||
| Rob R |
Re: Meat grinder & sausage stuffer...
 Only if you're trying to scratch your head at the same time 
The other bits are agreeable though... |
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| boisdevie1 |
I make sausages regularly with a Kenwood Chef and mincer/sausage attachment. Works a treat and of course you can use the Kenwood for other stuff too. | ||||
| dougal |
Re: Meat grinder & sausage stuffer...
It seems dpack, Pilsbury, Pricey, Wellington Womble and probably others too (like IIRC cab) must do a lot of head-scratching... Not just me! (Oh yes, him too...) 
http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=17113 |
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| Rob R |
I'm just going on the fact that winding the handle whilst stuffing meat into the worm is a silly thing to do (if you're fond of your fingers), and only having two hands seems to avoid that. 
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| dougal |
Isn't it the poking fingers down the hole that's the silly part?
Agreed that with a manual screw-feed you would have much more direct control than with a motorised one, however, with the apparently tiny size of the feed hopper on the item linked from Contadino's first post, you'd be stopped more than you were stuffing. And I don't think there's any way of avoiding smearing the texture of salami with a screw. Quite apart from whether it is unavoidably reminced before it reaches the stuffing tube. Not every mincer has the option of an 'open' support for the delivery end of the spiral. But that isn't a problem if one wants to fill sausages with uniform textured "banger" paste... |
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| Rob R |
Granted, my one is a good bit bigger than that one & does have an open end on the screw, as well as a not so big but wide feed on it. Tend to have the mix patted into little ball & 'throw' them into the screw to avoid air pockets & finger jarring. Still, an extra hand would be useful to drink tea with, at times.
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| lottie |
So do we---but I find it works best and most efficiently as a 2 person job when sausage stuffing |
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| Contadino |
...and I popped around to see an elderly neighbour this afternoon who was horrified at the idea of using a machine to make salami. Apparently he's going to come around and show me how it's done 'old school'.
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| toggle |
take some pix |
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| dougal |
My 2p bet is on a funnel and wooden spoon...
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| Contadino |
If past experience is anything to go by, it'll be a funnel to make salami, and a stick to hit me with when I do something wrong. |
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| lottie |
Please post how it's done---really interested | ||||
| Minamoo |
I would appreciate pics too! My sausage making experiments have not turned out too well. Mostly because of the fact that until very recently I hadn't found a source of halal beef fat that I could add to the mix. (I'm very particular about where I buy my meat - 'Halal' method of slaughtering animals is done to ensure that the animal suffers the least amount possible and what is the point of a halal death if the animal hasn't had a halal life? None as far as I'm concerned so I think that battery farmed chicken/zero grazing beef is NOT halal.)
First time I made sausages I made them out of chicken with loads of breadcrumbs and it worked ok. Texture not quite right though. The second time I experimented with using veggy suet but made the mistake of mincing it with the beef and it just got mushed into the mince and when cooked, the texture was more like a kebab than a sausage! I had just thought that it was cos I minced the fat with the meat but after reading this it seems like it might also have something to do with the sausage maker/stuffer I'm using. Would be fun to try a new method out and find out for sure! |
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| cab |
Gosh... Maybe we've been making salami and chorizos wrong all of this time, what with making them using the sausage maker attatchment on the kenwood chef mincer. Who would have thought that what we really need is a funnel, a wooden spoon, and an angry Italian. | ||||
| Erikht |
Yay! I love to lick the spoon! |
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| sean |
You'd need an angry Spaniard for authentic chorizo. |
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| toggle |
grabs sade and takes away all her yarn.
there you go |
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| Sade |
You'll be done fast taking all my yarn, dear
BTW, even being Spaniard, it takes a lot these days to make me angry! And uhm, no funnel for oldstyle :p |