New Grinder vs New Stuffer

[sueblazer03]

Thanks everyone. My husband decided he needed to go to Cabela's last Sunday. My son and I tagged a long. I picked up the stuffer and a grinder. (We got the mortgage paid off this month, so I decided on the extra treat. Separate bank accounts are wonderful.)
Any way I decided to clean up the stuffer on Monday. When I took out the 10mm stuffing tube there was a bright red sticker on it that said to add a minimum of 2 cups of water to each 10lbs of meat when using that tube. The 1st time I tried the 10mm tube on my other stuffer was with ground jerky very little water (The old man turned the crank) The last time I had all the meat ready but the recipe I booked marked was no longer available. So I faked it by looking at other cured sausage recipes. BUT no water. Now I'm thinking if I made more of a slurry my old stuffer might have worked better. It took my son and I about 2 hours to stuff 7lbs of snack sticks.  I'm planning on trying out the new equiptment this weekend.

[Habanero Smoker]

It always great to get a new gadget; especially after you have paid off the mortgage.

[iceman]

I just love new toys so I can play with my food!!! :D ;D Have fun with your new toys.

[acords]

10mm tube

Wow, that's small.  Where did you find casings?  My 3/8 in (19mm casing) stuffing tube is tough to use when I add water.  You can add lots of water and it won't affect the flavor.  It will actually help disperse the spice/cure more evenly.  Congrats of the morgage burning party!!!

[sueblazer03]

The 10mm is the same as the 3/8. I'm also using 19mm casing. Why they go circumference on the casings and and i/d on the tubes is beyond me. I live about 20 minutes away from Detroit Mi.and even though we are supposed to use metric in Canada most people still use inches etc. It gets confusing because because the stores advertise their meat by the sale price in lbs. but they sell it by the kilogram :o.

[sueblazer03]

  I now have 20 lbs of snack sticks waiting in the fridge. I'll smoke / bake them tomorrow. The 1/2 hp grinder worked like a charm. It took less than 10 minutes for each 10lbs batch. The unit was very quiet and it didn't heat up at all, even though there was a warning on the unit that it will run hot.
  My son ran the 11lbs stuffer and his only complaint was that it was getting boring. Clean up was easy. My only complaint with the unit was that we had to pull the canistor out to load it with more meat. With the long snack stick nozzle on we couldn't load it by tipping it forward. I needed to have my son hold it while I refilled it. It is not stable on its own.
  The grinder came with a "high speed snack stick stuffer" . Which is a small auger that ataches to the main auger and sits inside the 10mm stuffer tube. This wasn't listed on the box or in the catolog / website. Some day when I'm making a smaller batch I'll try it.