Thanks processhead. Looks like there is variation out there and others have experienced it in the #12 grinders as well. I don’t grind tons of meat. Perhaps I should just learn to sharpen the cheap (2 for $12.99 Amazon) knives and be happy.

I use a flat plate of glass with wet dry sandpaper to true various blades and mating surfaces for my other projects. I googled up grinder plate and blade sharpening and indeed there was a nice video on how to true up and resharpen grinder parts that way. Its really cool actually.

But the carbide tipped cutter looks like it would be a real performer. Afraid I should just send it back.

Too late to send the Chinese copy cat grinder back, and besides, it appears well built. Nothing against the stuff from Walton’s of course, but I was on a limited budget at the time.

My Vevor 7 liter horizontal came with a 10mm tube. Bout 6" long. And it has nice machined metal gears. Checked with a magnet. Not potmetal, but steel. The piston is either cast aluminum or potmetal. My only worry is the seal around the piston. It will get old eventually, and there are no parts from Vevor. But it looks like a carbon copy, sizewise, of a L*M.

The piston is cupped to match the end of the tube. Leave only a little residue in the nozzel where the tube attaches. Probably 1 oz or 2 oz waste out of 15 lbs.

I don’t know. The geometry of the grinder/knife interface troubles me. If all four blades of the knife are not equally riding the disk, you end up with lots of poor cuts.

OK, saw videos about cold smoking with wood “dust” and was smitten. Gotta do some salmon at true cold temps and what better time, than in the winter.

The grand daddy of wood dust burning setups is the ProQ, but they are spendy and lots of Amazon knock offs. Mine is a spiral and for the first 4 hours, was doing great. Then it jumped, or rather penetrated the barrier (which just as in the ProQ, is mesh and a little amazing that it works).

Subsequently lots of smoke and burned up the 18 hour spiral in about 4 more hours.

My wood dust is just pellets that I watered down to cause them to disintegrate, and then dryed back out. They seem very “dusty”. Sawdust is plenty fine I think. Maybe too fine or too dusty?

Anyone have experience? The specialty sawdust is kind of expensive.

I dunno. I threw my last batch into a big plastic tote, directly from the smoker, and just let them rest in the garage at around 45deg F till the next day. Too lazy (it was late when the temp hit 160) to ice them etc. Everyone likes them.

But did some 17mm sticks that had tough casings a couple batches ago. People were troubled a little. Not up to my usual product. I need to keep experimenting. I am certain that there are a bazillion ways to do this, but also a lot of ways to screw it up. We all need to find out process.

I do think its not a good idea to mix sizes in the same batch. My 17mm fail (not really, were still quite edible) was part of a mixed batch. So they got over cooked while waiting for the 19mm to get to temp.

No, it got a lip. Kind of hard to describe. Think of an “H” on its side with one of the arms tipped up. Now, it came installed with the tipped up arm/lip to the BACK, which meant it kind of leaked a little along the way. Not much.

But then I figured out how to reverse the seal, so the lip was really sealing. You have to really baby the piston in, by turning it (I keep it partially unthreaded) and using your finger to start the seal. But once I figured that out, man, perfect seal. I mean NO meat escapes except the little bit left at the end.

I’m also amazed that even with thick sausage, somehow or the other most of the air escapes via the air valve. I do try and “throw” handfuls of sausage into the stuffer so that they kind of splat at the bottom. Trying to work out the air bubbles in advance.

My Vevor 7 liter horizontal came with a 10mm tube. Bout 6" long. And it has nice machined metal gears. Checked with a magnet. Not potmetal, but steel. The piston is either cast aluminum or potmetal. My only worry is the seal around the piston. It will get old eventually, and there are no parts from Vevor. But it looks like a carbon copy, sizewise, of a L*M.

The piston is cupped to match the end of the tube. Leave only a little residue in the nozzel where the tube attaches. Probably 1 oz or 2 oz waste out of 15 lbs.

I paid a little over $100 for my 7 liter Vevor (chinese copy, well made). That was a year ago. I like it, but since its manual, it makes for a 2 person job. If the mix is too thick, it will not stuff well. A little more water. Waltons recipe for snack sticks says to double the water for manual stuffers.

I got the 2" base to work in my 2 1/8" stuffer with a home made gasket made out of old inner tube. Works, but requires a little fiddling when screwing things together. Not sure its worth the trouble. But it is nice sliding a whole stick of casing on and cranking out 27 feet of sticks.

When i researched stuffers, I read that the vertical stuffers with a 90 deg bend were harder to stuff into small casings. So I bought the 7 liter horizontal Vevor copy of some more standard stuffer. Manual. Its OK. The 10mm tube works for 17 and 19. Have not tried 16. I bought a LOOONG 10mm tube from Smokehouse Chef I think. And it was that strange 2" size that I have to figure out a solution to use in my 2-1/8" stuffer. Ironic OP had the reverse problem.

I wanted the long tube so I could stuff a full 15 lbs of sticks into one length of casing. I tie them off and hang them and the less beginning and ends the better.

For little stuff, I think you also need to pay attention to water content. Still learning about that. My last batch was too stiff. I was beat, getting arm and hand cramps at last after cranking with 20-40 lbs of pressure for an hour!!! More water next time!

I don’t know. The geometry of the grinder/knife interface troubles me. If all four blades of the knife are not equally riding the disk, you end up with lots of poor cuts.

I would worry that even a quality belt sander, while sufficiently true for woodworking might not be perfectly true to say 0.001" which is my language. I decked the heads of a subaru boxer block using plate glass, 320>400>600>800 grit sandpaper and WD-40 as lubricant (WD-40 was just what someone suggested on internet). Worked.

But conceptually, and for less than precise work, the belt sander might be the ticket for fast. I am really new to grinding meat, but not new to sharpening. I imagine that the better the plate and knife match, the better the grind. Makes me wonder if we should be smearing some valve lapping rouge on the plate and blade and running the grinder a bit first to mate the two surfaces. Just musing.

Looking at the various grinder knives I have in my possession thus far, they are really poorly ground and really not honed at all.

Thanks processhead. Looks like there is variation out there and others have experienced it in the #12 grinders as well. I don’t grind tons of meat. Perhaps I should just learn to sharpen the cheap (2 for $12.99 Amazon) knives and be happy.

I use a flat plate of glass with wet dry sandpaper to true various blades and mating surfaces for my other projects. I googled up grinder plate and blade sharpening and indeed there was a nice video on how to true up and resharpen grinder parts that way. Its really cool actually.

But the carbide tipped cutter looks like it would be a real performer. Afraid I should just send it back.

Too late to send the Chinese copy cat grinder back, and besides, it appears well built. Nothing against the stuff from Walton’s of course, but I was on a limited budget at the time.