Emulsified Meat

[grasshopper]

For me this all started with my wife's Kitchen aid. I purchased the meat grinder attachment. Equipment has advance since then. So looking at Nor cal's recipe for mortadella and emulsifying the meat. I think I am back to the kitchen aid for emulsifying the meat. I have a 5- lb stuffer and #12 grinder. Comments are sure welcome on emulsifying, stuffing and casings.

[ursula]

Hi Grasshopper,
I had a lot of trouble with my initial attempts at emulsified sausages. The texture would never come close to what I wanted. Always somewhat grainy.
I've now purchased a 1400 watt food processor, and the results are much better.
What I find is that it is important that the meat is really cold as a starting point. I usually stick it in the freezer first. Then I only process a bit at a time; you can soon judge what the food processor can manage. I hit it with about 20 seconds of processing at a time, measuring the temp between hits. I continue with this until the temp hits about 57 degrees. Then I stick it back in the freezer and have another bout when it's cold again.
I've at last got frankfurters I can be happy with.
Hope this helps
There are some great tips from some of the other guys on this site regards stuffing, which I found great advice when I did my first sausages. I think they're mainly under the beginners' pages.
Regards Ursula

[huckelberry]

I'm sure you've probably already tried it but I'm gonna put my 2 cents in anyway, simply because I ran in to the same problems the first time I tried to make hot dogs.
I burnt up two processers trying to get it right, and what I've found is... first off, if your dead set on using the food processor, get one with a direct drive and a lot of power, no belt driven ones.
For the most part the less expensive processors wont handle it, they tend to burn up.
I now have a very nice processor and never really use it, because I don't like the extra cleanup.
The results by grinding multiple times through my grinder are every bit as nice of a texture as if i had used the processor. I've tried several times and it's just not worth it to me.
what I do is I grind everything through a 3/8" plate once.
Then I take the ground meat and form logs small enough to fit the throat of the grinder on to a cookie sheet and refreez it.
I then regrind through a 3/16" plate repeating the process two more times, and it is a lot less hassle. The trick is you must have sharp knives and plates and you must be sure the plate is seated tightly.
In fact when I get home I'm making another batch of beef dogs for and with the kids that are going to be visiting us. I've made the dogs for them before and they love the Rytek recipe. And if they like the dogs I'm turning out they must not be too bad.
Anyway that's just my opinion for what it's worth.
Good luck Grasshopper if you keep at it you'll get the kinks ironed out.