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Sausage-making is a centuries-old means of preserving meat. If you’ve gone hunting, you know that it will take many days to consume an entire deer, and you don’t want all that meat to go to waste. If you have a lot of excess meat and you’re afraid it will spoil, curing the meat and making it into sausages is a thrifty idea. So getting your own sausage stuffer, where you can control the quality of the meat and the fillings that you put in, sounds like a great option.
But there are a number of designs of sausage stuffers. There are manual and electrical versions, and they employ different means of how you’re supposed to load the sausage filling. We've put together this sausage stuffer buyer's guide to help you select the best sausage stuffer that answers to your needs. It'll help you:
Choose the right type of sausage stuffer,
See useful tips about that type of sausage stuffer,
Read reviews of different brands of sausage stuffer, and what customers are saying,
Select the right brand of sausage stuffer, and
Compare prices and find the best deals.
We can distinguish between the types of sausage stuffers by their configuration:
Horizontal Sausage Stuffers: Here the meat is inserted horizontally, and air or water pressure drives the meat into the sausage casing. The Dakotah Sausage Stuffer & Jerky Maker DKS 244 has such a design.
Vertical Sausage Stuffers: The advantage here is that it saves countertop space. You load the sausage stuffing in the top, and operating the stuffer injects the meat into the casing.
Horn Sausage Stuffers: A horn stuffer has a curved shape, where the meat is loaded through the top, but glides into the sausage casing. LEM Products SKU 824 is a horn shaped stuffer, which combines aspects of a horizontal and vertical stuffer.
We can also distinguish between the types of sausage stuffers by their method of operation:
Motorized Sausage Stuffers: A motorized sausage stuffer will allow you to work on large quantities of meat very quickly. But you can also expect them to cost considerably more.
Manual Sausage Stuffers: These are good for smaller quantities, where you are making sausage more as another option for food preparation, instead of a method of food preservation.
Based on all the consumers' reviews we've scanned, these are the top things they mentioned about their new stuff:
Replacement parts: You should make sure that the brand of sausage stuffer that you buy has replacement parts. For instance, you might need extra O-rings (rubber rings that prevent the injected meat from leaking out through the sides), and some versions have special O-rings.
Prefer stainless steel tubes: Cleanliness is important when making sausage. So stainless steel parts and injection tubes are preferable, since they’re easier to clean.
Lubrication: It’s important to keep the parts lubricated. There are food-grade lubricants that are special for parts that come in contact with food.
Grinding the meat: There are sausage stuffers that act as meat grinders as well. So the sausage making is all in one step: you insert the whole pieces of meat, and the machine grinds and injects the ground meat into the sausage casing. The STX INTERNATIONAL STX-1800-MG Magnum Patented Air Cooled Electric Meat Grinder is such a model. But there are also stand-alone meat grinders, which just grind the meat for you. Then you add breadcrumbs and seasonings, or any other filler, and use a separate sausage stuffer to form the sausage.
Variable speed control: You see sausages in all sorts of thicknesses. This stems from the different diameters of stuffing tubes, which inject the sausage meat into the casing. The narrower stuffing tubes will require you to work at a slower speed. There are motorized sausage stuffers, such as the LEM Products SKU 1217, with variable speed control, so you can prepare the sausage at your own pace. Even manual sausage stuffers, like the Vivo STUFR-V203, have two gear speeds, for control over how you inject the sausage.
Air release valve: You would like the sausage to be 100% filled with meat, with no air pockets inside. The VIVO Sausage Stuffer has an air release valve, which drives air out through the top, rather than into the sausage casing--that’s more efficient.
LEM—was founded by Larry Metz in 1991 in West Chester, Ohio. They are makers of food processing and food preparation tools. They make meat grinders, sausage makers, beef jerky makers, kitchen utensils, food seasonings, and more.
Vivo—Vivo makes a diverse selection of products, ranging from computer monitor and TV mounts, projector screens, desks, computer cases, and more. They also make kitchen appliances and beekeeping equipment. They make a vertical sausage stuffer machine in various capacities: 3 liters, 5 liters, and 10 liters. They were founded in Goodfield, Illinois in 2012.
Hakka Brothers--Hakka Brothers are makers of kitchen appliances, headquartered in Guangdong, China. They make meat grinders and slicers, sausage stuffers and fillers, mixers, ovens, stoves, juicers, ice cream machines and more. They make both vertical and horizontal sausage stuffers.
Buffalo Tools-- includes a number of products and companies: Buffalo Tools makes power tools and food preparation equipment, AmeriHome makes home accessories, Black Bull makes automotive equipment, and Sportsman Series makes food processing and cookware equipment. They are located in O'Fallon, Missouri.