Starting to look at sausage stuffers. Really inspired by some recent posts by you all, especially NePas. What is a good suggestion for a mid-range starter? Do the stuffers also do the grinding of the meat?
I think everyone will tel you, you want a grinder and a stuffer.
Makes life easier.
You don't have to get crazy with what you get, just get a quality starter.
If you find that you make more, then you can upgrade and easily find a home for the next future sausage maker.
Suggestions on brands to research?
Simply put, grinders grind and stuffers stuff. I don't think the twain will ever meet.
A moderately priced stuffer is a great investment if you're doing some sausage.
I have a LEM 5 pound with metal gears. You can get a similar machine with plastic gears cheaper. Having a heavy hand, I wanted the metal gears.
Try http://meatprocessingproducts.com/ They have a nice selection and discount coupons.
They have a excalibutor 5 tray dehydrator out of box for 129.
promotion code is MPP2010.
$10 off any order over $70.
They are very fair on shipping .
I have ordered from them 3 times.
CRG put me onto MPP. They're nice people to deal with. Decent prices.
Cant beat the LEM 5 pound stuffer for the price. I have had many dehydrators and gone through 3 excaliburs. Good but the housing cracks. Dont know if they have fixed that issue yet.
Best dehydrator i have had besides my eqi-flow is the cabelas.
I purchased the 5lb from Grizzly http://www.grizzly.com/products/5-lb-Vertical-Sausage-Stuffer-SS/H6252 it does have the plastic gears but I have not had any trouble with it at all. It does come with plastic stuffing tubes. It cranks just fine and also has the air relief valve in the plunger. When stuffing I just make sure to stop stuffing when the threads get down to 2 which means the plunger is at the bottom. I figured I saved over $80.00 getting this one Vs the LEM and it does the same job.
From what I can gather, you can get a grinder that also stuffs (like the one I got) but a stuffer will never grind. I got the Princess Auto 5 lb'er which is the same as the Grizzly and the LEM. I haven't used them yet so can't say good or bad.
Follow the advice on the forum, I tried the stuff with a grinder method 1 time. ??? Never again, What a pain to continually feed meat into the opening not to mention the arm strength required. It didn't take any time to convince the wife on a vertical stuffer. ;D
I have a LEM 5lb stuffer that I just love.
We went with it because were sold on the metal gears.
Carolyn
I also have the LEM 5 pound stuffer and I love it works very well
LTS
Ditto on the LEM.
It's a great little stuffer for the price and it won't let you down.
Thanks for all the advice.