Homemade Sausage Making

Dave , My sister raises chickens for food and keeps close account of the cost for feed and shelter. I can purchase chickens on sale for less than she can grow them. Granted hers are antibiotic free and free range. I am able to kill, scald, pluck and butcher chickens but buying them cleaned and ready to cut up is a good deal in my book.

ssorllih wrote:Dave , My sister raises chickens for food and keeps close account of the cost for feed and shelter. I can purchase chickens on sale for less than she can grow them. Granted hers are antibiotic free and free range. I am able to kill, scald, pluck and butcher chickens but buying them cleaned and ready to cut up is a good deal in my book.

Agreed...I do the same thing. It's good to know where they come from and how they are raised though for sure. There is only one way a roaster or fryer can be sold for $1.29/lb or eggs for $1.25/doz. I feel lucky I'm able to raise my own.

The stores frequently offer chicken as a loss leader. Hoping that people will buy one chicken and make up the loss with a 100 dollars worth of other stuff.
I watch for meat hitting the sell-by dates and get some fantastic prices. Two weeks ago I bought 2- 15 pound turkeys for .59 a pound.

Go Sharks! Good luck in this year's Curry Cup.

I just bought this unit for myself for Christmas. I have a problem with buying equipment which then has a constant financial drain with expensive consumables. This one uses bags that are only a fraction of the cost of the other units.
I also love the fact that you can vacpack liquids, leftover sauces etc. I can see I will get a lot of use out of this.
The unit was $629 on Amazon, but they won't ship to Oz. I finally found a company which would,and it's on its way. Even with the currency exchange, the purchase of a transformer and $135 postage, it still came in around $900.
There is one company in Oz which will sell a 240V version at a whopping $1799!!!!!

So this year there will only be one present under my Christmas tree.
-Except there won't even be a tree.
Ursula

You wont regret that purchase Ursula!

I got a VP215 around a year ago after going through another vacmaster.

The bags are inexpensive, around 7 cents apiece for the 10X13" size.

You can do marinades and cures in the fridge without large containers. I could go on and on!

The only disadvantage that I have found is with those size machines you are limited to a 13" (lenth)
bag.

I cant agree more. I have a small farm and use this all the time. I have fit up to 8lb whole chickens in it. Also Pekin ducks are no problem. At pig slaughter time, I cant tell you all the cuts that I seal with this. Great machine.

Can also be used for sous vide cooking if you are into that.

Good goin' Ursula. Mine is in constant use also. Smart move my girl!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Arrgg! Our third FoodSaver bit the dust. Three machines in maybe ten years is just plain frustrating! Checking on various options; nothing decided yet. I am definitely liking what I'm reading in here about the ARY VacMaster Pro 112. I was also looking into the Weston Pro-2300, but I do like having the options to vacuum liquids.

Jim

Ouch! Mine too Jim. I'm burying it in the back yard and will play Taps over the thing. Actually, for a "name brand", it didn't last all that long. Please let us know if you find a good one.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

For something that I thought we'd use maybe once a week, I'm now`amazed at how often we use it. Leftovers, for example, portions of soup, sausages (of course), marinating pork chops or chicken, freezing just about everything... Our zip-lock plastic bag consumption has gone way down since we got the thing. Unlike zip-locks, they don't leak, so you can just toss whatever you seal (labeled, of course) into the refrigerator or freezer without having to include a dish to collect the spillage.

So, after ypu play taps over the poor old thing, give the bugle a good scrubbing (and marvel at how badly it needed it after all these years!), then seal the parts in a vacuum bag with your new one. And speaking of hardware, seal small parts that need to be kept together in a vacuum bag, then...

But don't do like our poor friend Chuckwagon, who accidentally put the vacuum sealer INTO the bag, pressed the "seal" button, and the thing vacuumed and vacuumed until - POP! - it winked out of existence. Fortunately, the electric plug pulled out of the wall, or Utah's Great Basin would have become even more barren than it is today.

This is the ARY Vacmaster VP112 that arrived recently. It's a brilliant machine (very heavy though - will have to find a permanent place for it.) It operates efficiently and the best thing is the bags are so cheap. With the other hand held one I had I was paying 50 c a bag.
You do have to be gentle with the lid of it, as I read on the Amazon reviews.
You guys in the states can buy it really cheaply - I paid around $900 for it. I did have to buy a step down transformer, but that's a non-issue. It works perfectly.
It's a big initial expense, but I forget that quickly. It's the ongoing expenses that I don't like with cheap equipment.
Ursula

Yes Ursula they are heavy but once you find a place for it you will use it quite often as the bags now cost pennies...not quarters.

Now that's a lovely setup, Bob. And you've even got room for an icecream maker on the right!
Ursula

We're off to TX in March - I wonder if I can persuade DW that the $200 difference for the Vacmaster between Amazon.ca and Amazon.com makes it worthwhile. Hmmmmm