Sausage Fest and Meat Grinder Review

[rossislider]

Last fall I finally bit the bullet and dropped the cash for a grinder. Unfortunately, my inability to draw tags has limited my opportunities to use it. I did get to grind about 30 lbs. of burger from my son’s coues buck last October and did about 30 lbs. of a buddy’s elk. Fantastic grinder! It chewed through the meat faster than I could keep it fed. I highly recommend the LEM 3/4 hp power grinder to anyone looking to process their own meat, it is a beast. The only limiting factor is how fast you can stuff the meat in. Might not be cheap up front, but you will get all of that back after processing your first couple of animals, you will know you are getting back 100% of your animal, and you will know how the meat was handled. I'll add that I have used 3 different processors, some where better than others. But the best meat I have had is the stuff I have processed myself.

 

A couple weeks ago I was able to pick up about 30 pounds of pork butts for $.99 a pound so decided to give sausage making a go. Feeding the casings was a bit awkward at first for a newb, but by the end I was starting to get a good flow going.

 

A little pre-grind trim

 

Ready for the grinder

 

Course Grind

 

Ingredients added prior to fine grind

 

After second grind

 

Stuffed sausage wheels

 

Final product

[MULEPACKHUNTER]

Nice job, I am still using hand crank but if I ever get en elk tag that baby is on my list

[mbiewer]

what time is dinner? ha ha

[1denogean]

how did you finish it?

[rossislider]

how did you finish it?

Not 100% certain I know what you mean by finish. But my prefered way is in a bun with all the fixens! J/K

 

If you mean how did I separate and store them, I pinched where I wanted to finish one sausage, gave it a few twists, and did the same to the next but twisted the opposite direction. Once I finished all of them I used some kitchen scissor to cut the section between each link, and wrapped 4 to a pack in freezer paper and froze.

[rossislider]

The kids love them. Surprised how hast we are going through them. We have been eating them on buns, in pasta, on pizza, etc.

[PelaPapas]

Wow, looks good! I've always wanted a grinder!

[1denogean]

smoke it? oven? i wanna learn how to do what you just did

[Teo]

Lookin good man! Hey one piece of advice if I may offer it. You may have already learned this, but I learned the hard way...........after cleaning all your stuff, coat your grinder plates and blade in olive oil and seal it in a zip lock type bag. If not, then a "season" later, um yeah you'll be online looking for some non rusty ones.

 

Jeff

[rossislider]

smoke it? oven? i wanna learn how to do what you just did

No, these are simple Italian sausages (like bratwurst). You don't cook them until you are ready to eat them. The pictures you see there are everything from start till they are ready to hit grill, fry, boil, etc. The ones you smoke are usually salami style summer sausages. We have cooked these Italian sausages a number of ways. We didn't stuff all the sausage and just froze some to fry like hamburger. We use this in pasta, pizza topping, omelets, etc. You could also boil the whole sausages. My favorite way to cook the whole sausages is grilled. The outer casing gets a good crispness to it. I may try to do some smoked summer sausages at a later time.

[Big Browns]

Those look really yummy! Next time you are making some let me know. I would like to see how the grinder works. I'm thinking about getting one.

 

Adam

[rossislider]

Those look really yummy! Next time you are making some let me know. I would like to see how the grinder works. I'm thinking about getting one.

 

Adam

Grab some pork let me know when you want to do it. We will whip up a batch.

[Big Browns]

 

Those look really yummy! Next time you are making some let me know. I would like to see how the grinder works. I'm thinking about getting one.

 

Adam

Grab some pork let me know when you want to do it. We will whip up a batch.

 

 

 

Sounds good, thanks buddy!

[Hanksaiditbest]

What kind of casings did you use? I have been unhappy with the texture of the dried collagen casings I used this year

[rossislider]

I was originally going to try the dry collagen because they looked easy to use. But then I read a lot of reviews from people who didn't like the taste and or texture of the collagen. So I opted for natural hog casing. I bought them from Amazon. I'll include the link below. Overall I thought they were good quality and produced a great texture. The package claims it will do 20-25 pounds of sausage. I could have done well over 30 pounds with what was in the package. My only complaint is that the casings were short. There were probably about 12-15 casings that were 2-3 feet each in length. Rather than doing about 8 small sausage wheels, it wold have been much easier and quicker to do a few longer ones. The slowest part of the process for me was loading the casing onto the stuffing tube and starting and finishing each wheel. I called The Pork Shop in Queen Creek to see if they had natural hod casings that were longer. From what the guy there explained to me, their's should be about twice as long as the others I used. I'm going to give them a go next time.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Home-Pack-Sausage-Casings-32mm/dp/B001RQOY94/ref=pd_sim_gro_5/175-7621390-3204402?ie=UTF8&refRID=11R48CGARASFWYEJDS9B