Jonathon makes sense on the cure accelerator and going straight to stuffing, thanks.

I’m not exactly sure how much water I was adding, I only know that I added what I thought was a lot of water, had trouble, added more, to then getting blasted in the face with meat and water once the seal broke. Haha, it was quite the sight to see. And yes, I tried different setups with the seal thinking I might have it wrong but it blew out no matter how I tried it.

As for fat content, we used 50% beef(brisket) and 50% venison.

Harkness Awesome design, that’s impressive.

Jonathon the stuffing tube doesn’t have a label but I think it’s an un-tapered 12mm. I don’t think anything was blocking the end because it happened too many times. However, I did some closer inspection last night and the seal does have a little nick in it, not sure if this happened before our struggle or during our struggle but I’d suspect that could be a big reason as well.

Some very good points and ideas on here, thanks everyone. Now it’s decision time for me, fix “cheap” stuffer, improve cast iron stuffer as shown above, or buy one of the stuffers on this website. I must admit, the smooth elbow at the bottom, having 2 different crank speeds, etc. seem like a big advantage. From what I’ve read and seen online, they also look very well built.

Ridley Acres

Not manual defrost but also seems far enough away from there to be thawing/freezing so much. But that’s a good point.

Sounds like I should give it a whirl with the stuffer. Thanks

Planning to make some venison / pork sausage and smoke it but had a couple questions:

1. Finding pure pork fat has been harder so I was going to use pork butt instead, what’s a good ratio for pork butt and venison? Most of what I read suggested 50/50 for using pork butt (not pure pork fat) but I want to make sure it won’t be too dry and still has good flavor.

2. Any suggestions on seasonings? I’ve always purchased seasonings from amazon from various manufactures and never been impressed. I’d like to give some stuff from Walton’s website a try. Our typical taste is something with a little heat (not overbearing), and like almost all warm blooded humans, we like the taste of garlic. Any suggestions? I was thinking the roasted garlic seasoning but the cajun seasoning also caught my eye.

The last couple of batches of things we’ve made I’ve noticed that we’re producing a lot of heat with the meat grinder once we get to the 2nd grind. Even to the point where it will start steaming / cooking where you can smell cooked meat and when you pull everything apart to clean the auger and grinding plates, there’s cooked meat stuck to the auger.

Here’s what we’re doing: we’re putting all grinder plates, auger, neck, etc. in the freezer several hours before starting, meat is pulled directly from fridge and actually partial frozen at first grind and immediately placed in freezer until it’s time for 2nd grind, we’re oiling the grinder plates / blades before 1st and 2nd grind, and I’m finishing the 1st grind with an ice cube or two to push the last parts of meat out.

This last time, I tried placing an ice cube through the grinder every few mins or so, which helped, but certainly didn’t cure it.

Part of me says, it’s metal on metal, constantly moving parts, of course it’s going to produce heat, but is there anything else we should be trying to do to reduce the heat? Obviously it doesn’t help that the 2nd grind takes much longer than the 1st grind but I don’t exactly like the idea of smelling cooked meats while I grind raw meat.

craigrice No, I thought of adding that or cayenne pepper but didn’t know where to start on amounts. What would be a good starting point for a 25# batch, couple tablespoons?

I made a sample batch of willies snack sticks and also Cajun jerky. We tend to like something with a little kick and found the Cajun jerky tastes amazing and the snack sticks seem too bland for our taste.

I’ve done some reading and it seems like I could use the jerky seasoning to make snack sticks which I will probably do a test batch on. With that said, any other suggestions on snack sticks seasoning with a little kick? I’d like to try one additional sample batch, pick the best, and roll with it for a full 25# batch.

processhead
No, nothing appeared to be running abnormally slow. With the first of two grinds it was chewing threw it where I could barely keep up.

It’s actually done this the last two times I’ve unpacked and used it, and both times I didn’t grind that much meat….roughly 25# each time.

Grinder is a commercial grade 3/4 hp gander mountain model #12. It has a poly washer on the backside of the auger, that’s a good point that adding oil there would help as well. I’ll also poke around and see if I can find any aftermarket options for a replacement on the washer, it’s got a little wear to it.

Upon inspection the grinder plate and cutter didn’t seem dull to me but I ordered a few new ones a couple days ago that haven’t come in yet. I’ll see how much that helps.

The last couple of batches of things we’ve made I’ve noticed that we’re producing a lot of heat with the meat grinder once we get to the 2nd grind. Even to the point where it will start steaming / cooking where you can smell cooked meat and when you pull everything apart to clean the auger and grinding plates, there’s cooked meat stuck to the auger.

Here’s what we’re doing: we’re putting all grinder plates, auger, neck, etc. in the freezer several hours before starting, meat is pulled directly from fridge and actually partial frozen at first grind and immediately placed in freezer until it’s time for 2nd grind, we’re oiling the grinder plates / blades before 1st and 2nd grind, and I’m finishing the 1st grind with an ice cube or two to push the last parts of meat out.

This last time, I tried placing an ice cube through the grinder every few mins or so, which helped, but certainly didn’t cure it.

Part of me says, it’s metal on metal, constantly moving parts, of course it’s going to produce heat, but is there anything else we should be trying to do to reduce the heat? Obviously it doesn’t help that the 2nd grind takes much longer than the 1st grind but I don’t exactly like the idea of smelling cooked meats while I grind raw meat.

Yeah I wondered the same thing, as in maybe it needed a higher concentration since it wasn’t 100% pork.

I don’t have any left over seasoning from the package and it was 75% pork butt and 25% venison.

Follow up from previous post, I had prepared 25# of venison/pork sausage last year but didn’t stuff and decided to freeze until processing this year. Plan is to stuff into casing with this years batch of processing.

With that said, it was made using pre made seasoning from A.C. Legg which we’ve never tried before (we’ve been on a hunt for a good seasoning since we started processing ourselves several years ago). Nonetheless, we fried up a couple small patties the other day to try the flavor and found it bland. The package we tried was their most popular general sausage seasoning (Number 10). Im certainly not a cook/chef type to know by taste that it needs more “X”. With that said, what’s the best approach at this point, approach like we would plain meat and add salt, pepper, garlic, etc. until it has more flavor?

Also, it’s weird but my wife likes a little heat but doesn’t like jalapeño pieces in the sausage. Should I add red pepper flakes for heat, cayenne pepper?

These sound great, and now I’m hungry……haha

Thanks for sharing I’ll give this a try

Ridley Acres

Not manual defrost but also seems far enough away from there to be thawing/freezing so much. But that’s a good point.

Sounds like I should give it a whirl with the stuffer. Thanks

Last year while processing my own venison sausage I ran out of casing and vacuum sealed the remainder of the meat to not let it go to waste. Before I start this year’s processing, I’m concerned that this frozen meat may be very hard to stuff considering it’s been sitting for 6+ months in a vacuum sealed / freezer with curing salt in it.

Do you think it’s worth a shot stuffing into casing this year or am I better off just using it as ground breakfast sausage for patties?