I'm fairly new here to the forum, but have owned my BS for six months now and just love it. I want to start making sausage and have been looking at the Dakotah Water pak stuffer. Does anyone here own one or know anything about them? It seems the stuffer would be ideal for a one person operation.
Duane
Saw these up for sale at Butcher-Packer website. I was going to ask them for feedback on it, but all the emails to them bounced back. I have been assemblying items to do sausage myself. Have a stainless hand cranked mixer to keep the hands from getting cold, and a nice 1.5 HP grinder. The stuffer I am looking at is this one: http://www.chefknivestogo.com/fdichomsausf.html
It is pretty pricey, and holding off getting it. Now if my wife were to ask what I want for Christmas.........hmmmmmm!
Hope someone has used or seen one used in making sausage. Would worry about a water leak getting everything quite messy.
Bill
Smokin,
I have used commercial water pressured stuffers and they worked great. This one is designed quite a bit different. I think if the meat is of the right consistency it would probably work fine. If you want to season meat and let it sit in the cooler for a day or so you may have trouble with not enough pressure. The stuffer Bill refers to is probably the top of the line home use stuffer out there. You could probably find one of the same type and good quality for about the same price as the water pic. Let us know what you decide. I bought my stuffer online and was disappointed with a plastic gear, though it still works OK.[:D][:)][8D]
Just happened on your post I don't know if you got a water stuffer yet but i have one of the Dakotah stuffers and it works great. I made a little change to mine, here is what I did, where the water would go in I screwed a quick disconnect for an air hose, I then connect a 9 volt DC air valve to this connector, to that air valve I hook a compressor with about 20 pounds of pressure the system works great and no water mess. All parts were about $20.00 less the compressor of course. One of the small tankless compressors would work fine.
Rod
Rod,
Thanks for the info on the water stuffer. being able to to use air instead of water to power the stuffer makes it even more appealing.
I hope to buy one in the next couple of months.
Duane
bologna man,
Ditto on the thanks. These Dakotah stuffers are so much less than the expensive ones, and looked like they would do the job pretty well. I am glad you posted up your experiences with it. The air is an excellent idea.
Bill
Picked up one of the clear body Dakotah stuffers on Ebay, and interested in seeing your air set-up for it. Have you got the jerkey kit for it? If so, how does it work? Do a good job?
Thanks,
Bill
If any one has a Kitchen-Aide mixer with the PTO type attachment on the top the grinder and stuffer work pretty good. The stuffing is a 2 person job but hey what are wives for? I have 6 more lbs of bologna going on the smoker tonight[:D].
Jeff
www.bbqshopping.com
Some say BBQ is in your blood, if thats true my blood must be BBQ sauce.
Go to:
dakotahsausagestuffer.com
They work great. Easy one person stuffing. Make sausage without casings and shorten smoking time.
Sorry the link is:
http://dakotahsausagestuffer.com
!!!BUMP!!!
Just wanted to bump this so that I can find it again without spending half the morning looking for it.
Well double Bump for Hab... ;D
Thanks!
I'm in the process of purchasing this stuffer, and wanted to make sure I could find it again. I will be converting it to use air. I ordered the stuffer today. Latter I dug out my old air compressor, and found out it was no longer working. So now I need to purchase one of those in the near future.
I'm not familiar with that one, but I had great success with a Cabela model last deer season..........
and we're just days away from doing it again.
Coyote
Quote from: coyote on October 16, 2006, 08:23:18 PM
I'm not familiar with that one, but I had great success with a Cabela model last deer season..........
and we're just days away from doing it again.
Coyote
If that stuffer is a vertical hand crank model, I've had some experience with that type, and I just could not get use to it. I would always wind up packing the sausage too tight. The Dakotah will allow me use both hands to handle the casings and guide the sausage. Plus I like the jerky attachment, which I will be ordering latter on. So I thought I would go in this direction for home use.
Hab,
If you're going to do some modifications to the stuffer I would suggest a pressure relief valve somewhere, either on the compressor or the stuffer. I got a piece of meat stuck in the stuffing tube on mine and blew the end out of it. No damage but it sure was a surprise.
The jerky attachement is ok but the jerky doesn't come out of the ports at the same speed so you have one pushing off the side of the paper or one breaking.
Good Luck
Darrell
Be careful with air fellas. A lot of energy stored in that compressed stuff believe it or not. Water=not compressible (not much bang when a part, o-ring, piston etc. fails), air=mucho compressible (lots of bang), therefore potential for things to go boom. A reliable relief valve would be a must in my book. Standard testing methodologies often call for fluid pressurization to eliminate this risk.
just my opinion.
mld
Darrell and Winemaker;
Thanks for the information. I'll make sure that I will add a relief valve. It looks like I will have time to research this, since I probably will not be able to get a new air compressor until sometime early next year. Until then the water pressure will have to do.
Darrell;
Other then the problems you mentioned; how good is it stuffing sausage. Did you add a relief valve to yours? If so did you attach it to the stuffer or compressor? Any problems attaching it?
Hey Hab, We got bound up a bit (the stuffer not us ) when we went to lean on the water durring mixing. I volunteer my son to do the cranking on both the mixer
and the stuffer.................he's such a good boy ;D
Hab,
I don't use air, just water.
I didn't add a relief valve as my problem with blowing it apart was a mistake on my part. If I was using air though I certaily would add one.
It did a good job. Once you get the water flow adjusted you pretty much have both hands free. I never shut the discharge port completely off, always allow some water going through. When you want to stop it open the discharge port completely, seems to shut down faster than closing the inlet port.
Now I'm only making about 3 lb batches once a month or so. Doctor said to lay off the fats. So I use the stuffing tubes that came with my Northern Tools grinder. Sort of got used to one hand stuffing.
Darrell
Darrell,
Thanks for the information on the operating instructions. That will save me a lot of trial and error. I also have to watch my fat and salt intake, which is one of the purposes of wanting to make my own.
I'll be making batches for family members, and I will only keep a small amount for my own use. But my main goal is to make the perfect hotdog; such as the ones that are called half-smokes.
Was using the search feature tonight and this thread caught my attention. Its been a year and I was wondering how the air pressure supplied Dakotah stuffers are working for everyone? I see the stuffer is on sale for $99 from Dakotah themselves and I am quite interested in getting one. I have an extra pancake air compress just laying around that would be great to use. I am wanting to get into sausage making this looks like a great way to get started for not a whole lot of money, plus the hands free operation would be great.
Thanks,
James
Sorry! This is another project that I haven't completed yet. There is a foot pedal conversion kit that is being sold by a third party. This allow you to hook up a foot pedal so you can control the flow of water. I haven't purchased that yet, and probably won't. I believe it cost's around $130. I usually find that device when I do a search for Dakotah Water Stuffer on Amazon.com.
That is a good price. You should be aware that for now they only offer two different stuffing tube sizes; 3/8" and 3/4", plus the jerky kit which you can make 1" skinless sausage. I don't have the jerky kit, but so far the two stuffing tubes meets all my needs.
Sausage season is on the way Habs. I'm building my stockpile of high speed (venison) beef as we post !
Coyote
i use a kitchen aid and the grinding part no problem. is the hand stuffers better. it is a chore to stuff with a kitchen aid !
I use to stuff with the KitchenAid. It can be done, and you can get good results. I just didn't like the height that the stuffer was located at. It was much too high for me, and my arms would tire quickly. Also you can only get a small amount of meat feed at any given time. I would make 5-6 pounds at a time, and even with that small amount, my arms would hurt. The sausage stuffer attachment is reasonably price, so you may want to check that out first before buying an other type of stuffer. Besides occasionally I will still use mine; if you are only doing 1-3 pounds of sausage it the perfect thing to use, without having to clean up too much equipment.