I have a Hobart Model 1712 and am curious how sharp the blade should be. Any recommendations? I know processhead can provide some wisdom on this.

Ground up some additional venison from last fall’s mule deer harvest. Used my 11 lb sausage stuffer for the first time to bag the grind. Was really impressed with the quality & ease of use of this unit. Looking forward to my next batch of sausage!

Anyone interested in a very lightly used meater block and an extra probe? $250 plus shipping if anyone is interested. Works great, I just went a diff direction in probes.

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I’m looking at upgrading from my little kitchen slicer to the 8 or 10 inch meat slicer that Waltons has. I probably use it once a month to slice meat and cheese. Is it worth the extra money to get the 10 inch over the 8 inch or is the 8 inch fine for what I do if anyone has used these two?

I am tagging Jonathon since I think he did some early research on this project. Hopefully someone else will find this hack useful.

The issue with these old cast iron stuffers is the handle is too short and has inadequate leverage for small diameter sausages like snack sticks.

This adapter allows the use of a standard 1/2 square drive ratchet so you can just use the optimum swing of the ratchet handle that gives you the best leverage.
You can also use a longer handled ratchet or a cheater pipe to provide more leverage.

The key is the adapter is a 1/2 inch female to 1/2 female socket . I found one on Amazon for about $9.
As it arrives, it still needs a modification to fit on the pinion gear of the stuffer correctly.
The square male drive on the stuffer is a square fitting with a taper. The female end of the adapter has straight sides. In order to fit properly, I had to heat the adapter end with a torch till it was cherry red and then press it on the end of the stuffer pinion gear to expand the adapter to the correct profile.
Once expanded, the adapter is a perfect fit and can be permanently attached to the pinion gear shaft with a 1/4" screw like the original handle was attached.
Now a 1/2 drive socket will fit directly on the other end of the adapter and the ratchet will allow a more comfortable range of motion with less effort.

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After posting a few questions here, reading hundreds of threads and reviews, I ended up ordering this new high end smoker, and a cold smoke generator to hang on the side. It is doing it’s first “seasoning run” right now.
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Seems well built. The 40page programming booklet is daunting, and could seriously use an edit and a Quick Start Guide. But I got it set to 250f and going, I can figure out programming and the app now. I liked the 6 step programming and easier phone app, that was before I waded into the manual lol.

I elected to go with a separate pellet grill which I already have, and a smoker, rather than try to make it a one-does-all device. Got tired of my Traeger not holding 130 to 185 reliably. This smoker should let me do 80 to 100f cold for salmon lox, and a nice schedule for meatsticks without having to worry about fat out due to poor temp control. Excited!

IMG_1085.jpg ![IMG_1086.jpg](/assets/uploads/files/1646145639657-img_1086.jp GWG8541 All the talk about this type of pan made me think my mom had been given a lot of cast iron when her sister passed. I went through it and found this pan. Needs a lot of work to clean it up but in decent shape . I dont know if it is a good one or not . maybe someone on here knows. There where some other pans that I have no idea what they are for eitherIMG_1086.jpg

Out with the old and in with the new. 20230314_165409.jpg

I’m looking for the sharpener for a Hobart slicer 1512.2020-09-21_13-28-32_908.jpg

What a game changer! Ground #25 of pork butt through the fine plate in 16 minutes. I had to use the stomper the first couple of minutes. This was due to putting the head in the freezer overnight. The meat chucks would stick to the throat like a wet tongue on a flag pole. But after a couple minutes everything fed right through. Great product!

What are you guys using to oil your plates and knives in your grinders? Will food grade mineral oil work for now? I just washed and sprayed sanitizer on all the new parts on the L*M and wanted to oil them and put them in baggies to keep the respective knifes and plates together

I just bought a big bite 22 a month ago and im hearing i need to have a knife for each plate and keep them together as as set… What say you?

Hi all,

I have a Weston grinder I’ve been using for ~5 years now. We typically process 1-5 deer/antelope and 5-10 hogs every year with no issue. This weekend we had 2 grinders running at once due to the amount of meat we were processing. We always grind twice, using the finer plate on the second round. Our grinder worked great with no issue on the first grind, but we could not get the second grind to go through. We have run this same process for many years and suddenly things just aren’t running quite right. We refreeze meat in between grinds, and the second grinder (~1 year old L*m) was able to take the same batch and immediately second grind with no issue. After cleaning we lubricate with mineral oil and store in a dry place.

Are there any parts you would recommend replacing or sharpening? Or is it just time for a new grinder?

L*m #12 grinder. Do any of the mixers fit? To narrow the scope, it could help any brand and I don’t really need a 50 lb mixer, but if that’s all that fits…

Crazy day here guys, and I am off on Monday BUT here is the Insert

A long time ago glen gave me an old enterprise stuffer that was in need of some tlc. I said I’d work on it in my free time, but that has been hard to come by recently, for everyone, not just me. Well, this weekend my wife and my plans got blown up when she had to go into work. So, I finally put a little work into it! I basically got all the easy rust done, now the detail work begins and will probably take a good amount of time.20221217_132755.jpg
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Not sure allowed here so please delete if not allowed.

I have a Weston 44# mixer and would like to get a grinder that has reverse to attach to it. The Weston Pro #22 does but a is a bit pricey. Anyone use a Walton #22 for this mixer??

Thanks in advance.

Was looking for a new smoker and saw the PK100. It uses sawdust but then noticed you can get pellet smokers which I always have pellets on hand and do like the idea of WiFi like the Louisiana vertical The PK100 is a lot higher priced but if its that much better then maybe I would like it better.Any thoughts? I thought I would call Waltons and ask but when I got the “technical dept” the guy had to type in PK100 and had only been there 3 months He did get back to me but told me I couldn’t use pellets in the PK100 which is not even what I ask him so I am looking for someone a little sharper about smokers

Hello community,

I purchased a few cans of Food Grade silicon spray for maintaining my equipment. I haven’t used them on my equipment yet, but after sharpening my knifes I decided to try coat the knifes with it when I was done…

It smells (bad) just like non food grade silicon spray. I am apprehensive to use this on Meat grinding equipment before and after use due to it safely?!?, “contaminating” my finished products. I cant image tasting silicon would be pleasant.

I bought a bottle of food grade mineral oil to use instead. What am I missing? What situation should I use silicon spray over mineral oil and vise versa? Thanks in advance