Did my first processing with the new grinder, mixer and stuffer. My old setup was #8 grinder, #20 mixer, and #5 stuffer. 12lb batch was the biggest I had done before. I decided to do a whole 25lb batch with the new setup.
First off was the grind. The new grinder is simply a beast! The first grind, I almost could’t feed the thing fast enough. The second grind blew me away. My old grinder would have taken an hour to second grind 25 pounds. The new grinder took 15 minutes. I only had to clear it with the stomper twice. My old grinder was stomper everything on second grind. Washed up grinder head and hooked up the #50 meat mixer. Dumped in 25 lbs of meat and turned it on. Dumped in seasoning, cure, sure gel, and smoked meat stabilizer. Added 40 oz of water after a minute and let the mixer run. I can’t tell awesome it was not to have to crank that handle! Although the mixer worked great, you do have to watch the sides and scrape it down here and there. This is where a reverse would be nice but not a big deal. Being able to tilt the mixer to unload it was also great. After mixing, the tub comes off for cleaning. Surprisingly the tub fit in my sink better than the #20 and cleaning it was pretty easy. On to stuffing. I used 19mm casings for the snack sticks. I struggled with stuffing at first. The handle was extremely hard to crank. There was so much pressure when trying to crank that the handle slipped out of my hand and did 3 fast turns backwards barely missing smacking me in the face by about an inch. After checking a couple things I realize the air valve is adjustable and shipped completely closed. After opening it up things were much better. Making 19mm snack sticks was still a little tougher to crank, but adjusting the air valve took the back pressure off so the handle didn’t spin out of control backwards when you let go of it. By the last refill, I was stuffing like a pro. Overall, even though I had done grinding, mixing, and stuffing before, there was a learning curve on the bigger equipment. Overall, I did #25 in about 1/4 of the time it would have taken with the previous equipment. Looking forward to many more big batches.
@Jonathon is there any talk about getting a #25 tilting mixer for the smaller grinders say the #8 and #12 size I have a l*m hand crank and a l*m #8 grinder. I just don’t like the hand crank mixer I thought I would but I don’t……,,,I know I know but I bought them before I found this site….anyway I’d like to get a #25 mixer to hook to my grinder and I don’t think my grinder is rated for a big mixer and l*m is the only one that I found that has a smaller mixer crazy price though almost $500….also I believe Walton’s and l*m have the same hookup
I recently bought the Walton's 11 lb stuffer for making snack sticks and it works great! I bought it because I previously used my grinder to stuff and when I tried to use high temp cheese, the cheese turned to mush. With this stuffer, the cheese stays intact and the texture of the meat is even better quality. I used the smallest, I think it is 13 mm, stuffer attachment and I could hardly keep up with with the stuffing as my son turned the stuffer. It did not bind at all. I made #25 lbs of snack sticks in about 10 - 15 minutes. I wish I would have bought the stuffer a long time ago.
@smokinbubba I have a #25 L*M mixer. I have been running options through my head on how to do it. I got a couple ideas but haven’t really dove into it much yet. It has a stuffing speed that is slow and grinding speed that is faster. Need to check rpm on stuffing speed to see if it is slow enough for a direct drive.
