Sausage stuffing funnel

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 22:09

As a follow-up.... I found that trace amounts of sausage meat were getting hung up in the grooves at the glued seams. I tried to fill them in with my Official Mothra Steward Hot Melt Glue Gun, but the seams still aren't very smooth.

Then it dawned on me- - why glue it together at all? I went back to the hardware store and bought more PVC parts. I dry fit 'em together (well, smear a little pork fat on 'em so they'll come apart again, later), and can take 'em apart for cleaning. This way, too, I use, as the smallest piece, a union with a ridge in the middle that supports the tapered plastic stuffer tubes. I've found that with two different ones, I can support all three stuffer tube sizes.

I haven't tried this on sausage yet, I admit. It may leak like a sieve around the stuffer tube, in which case I'll add a short piece of the appropriate diameter tubing to hold the stuffer tube tightly in place.

Sorry for the wordiness. I really should learn how to shoot pictures with my phone and upload 'em. At any rate, Ross, I continue to believe that this contraption is a great idea, and thank you and Nancy for it.

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 22:29

Ducky, I knock mine apart with a rawhide mallet for cleaning no glue on the joints. my plastic stuffing tubes that came with the grinder are loose fit but seal tight when the mince starts through. That mince is a little harder to push than water.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 23:45

ssorllih wrote:Ducky, I knock mine apart with a rawhide mallet for cleaning no glue on the joints. my plastic stuffing tubes that came with the grinder are loose fit but seal tight when the mince starts through. That mince is a little harder to push than water.

Great. (I'll get this right, yet!)

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 01:13

I put this together for stuffing large casings with chunky sausage. The stand is almost as essential as the funnel. A 2 inch pipe top and smaller tubes would probable work well. It all comes down to how many PSI you can apply to the mince. The 3 inch pipe has a 7 square inch cross section so that just 20 PSI would require 140 pounds force on the plunger but a 2 inch pipe is only 3 square inches in cross section so 20 PSI would only need 60 pounds force.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Fri Mar 02, 2012 20:51

Well, it's been a while, but I've tried several "improvements" since that January 22 post.

The idea: stuff casings with small amounts of sausage mix (what's left over from using my stuffer)(which is a significant amount)

#1 improvement is a piece of pvc pipe with a couple of reducers on the end (enlargers, actually) and a cap, which fits reasonably well in the 1-1/2" pipe section of Ross's pvc straight-side funnel. As per his suggestion, everything is loose so it can be knocked apart for cleaning. I used some rubber self liner and some nylon windbreaker cloth for gasketing, and it works fine. Quite a bit of force is needed, especially when eveything is straight out of the refrigerator and cold and viscous. I wound up putting casing on the stuffer tube, holding it upside down (pointing up), pressing downward on the whole thing to force meat into the casing. I'll probably downsize to a smaller pipe for the straight-side funnel portion which contains the meat, to cut the pressure requirement. If it works well, I'll cut a hole in a step stool, kinda like Ross did, so I can extrude downward. We'll call it "the Russ-n-Ross Ram Rod," or something equally self-serving.

#2 improvement: we were at an outlet mall, and I happened to wander into a cake decorating supply shop. Bought a Wilton large size cake decorating bag and a large nozzle. Brought 'em home, trimmed the nozzle a bit so it would accommodate a stuffer tube, trimmed the bag and attached the nozzle per instructions, filled it half full of sausage mix, and attempted to fill casings. I could not generate enough pressure to get decent flow. There's probably a way, but it's not immediately obvious.

I've abandoned this approach for now, and am using my grinder as a stuffer for small amounts of sausage mix. However, you never know. My grandsons have a "stomp rocket" (air-powered, foot-launched) which may catalyze some ideas.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 14:26

Thanks to a recent NASA (National Association of Sausage Associations) development, you... yes, YOU! ...can now have your very own "Russ-n-Ross Ram-Rod" Small Batch Sausage Stuffer, version 2, for a mere pittance. Yes, folks, they never found WMDs in Iraq, and you'll never find them in any store, but if you call now, you can assemble your very own Widget for Meat Distribution for only $25 or so. Operators are standing by...

Navel Research Laboratory photo, showing grandchildren for size comparison.

As you surely recall, Ross and I exchanged a series of exchanges (well... whatever they`re called) about better ways to stuff sausage, particularly when the amount to stuff is small. My old horn-style Sears Special 5 Lb. stuffer has about a 2 lb heel left when the plunger bottoms out. Try that on a 2 lb batch of sausage and you don`t get very far. So, Ross built himself a device from PVC pipe and machined wood and O rings and screw thread. ...a beauty! The problem is, Ross is a machinist and I`m not. (The other problem is, I`m too cheap to hire a machinist, but we won't go there.) So... what to do?

Inspired by Ross's most recent post, I hit the hardware store. My earlier efforts at building an all-PVC version had met with mixed success. I couldn`t exert enough force on a 2" diameter tube of sausage to force it through the stuffer tube and into the casing. The thing also required about five hands in order to hold everything. Heartened by Ross`s success with a threaded screw plunger but tempered by my failure with brute force, I decided to reduce the diameter to 1-1/2 inch PVC, which would fit into a mechanical caulking gun in place of the caulk. Fortified by a couple of sausage biscuits, I headed for the hardware store on a bright Saturday morning, determined to find the right parts.

The first thing I found was that I could discard the 1-1/2" idea. A larger "Liquid Nails" caulking gun was available. The 2" pipe I had been using fit into it with room to spare. I already had purchased a 2" ID to 1" OD reducer, and a female/female coupling fitting. By buying a slightly smaller washer to replace the one on the caulking gun (so it would fit up inside the 2" pipe), plus a 1-1/2" pipe cap, I was good to go. The clearance between the cap and the inside diameter of the 2" pipe is fairly close. Each of my existing stuffer tubes fit down into the reducer. With sausage meat in the pipe, compression forces hold both the stuffer tube and the cap in place.

As it turned out, I can lay the whole thing on its side, manipulating the casing with left hand and squeezing the handle on the caulking gun with the right (or vice versa). The only trick is to remember to put the stuffer tube through the end of the caulking gun before threading the hog casing onto it. This could be remedied by enlarging the hole in the end of the caulking gun, but as I said, I`m no machinist.

Did it help? Well, I only had about 2-1/2 ounces of sausage meat left over when finished, the majority of it left in the stuffer tube. It was just right for a well-earned little snack. Cleanup is literally a snap- - PVC pipe is designed for potable water service, snaps apart for cleaning (no need to glue it together), and cleans up with just soap and water. Contrast that with my nasty old hard-to-clean cast iron horn stuffer, which takes a half hour to disassemble and wash, dry and lubricate and put away.

Next...??? I may cut two additional lengths of 2" pipe so I can load everything and go. My first run, which was a nominal 2 lb. batch of Greek Loukanikos, I had to pull the 2" pipe only once to reload. For up to, say, 5 lbs, I should pre-load three lengths of pipe and stuff a single length of casing. Then, for each other couple of pounds, I`ll fit another "short" of casing, refill the three pipe segments, and go again.

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Sun Jul 22, 2012 17:22

Brilliant!! Must have set you back all of about twenty bucks.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 03:36

That includes the price of the sausage biscuits.

Thanks for the inspiration.

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Mon Jul 23, 2012 04:16

Now we need to develop a sausage coiler that will make neat coils while we just fill the casings.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 02:21

ssorllih wrote:Now we need to develop a sausage coiler that will make neat coils while we just fill the casings.

Now that you mention it, I have an old string trimmer in the garage, and some voice box parts from a "Tickle Me Elmo" who underwent sudden surgery one Christmas night after the grand-kiddies were (at last) again snug in their beds.

...didn't know that elective surgery means you can all vote for it, but here's a great example.

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 03:13

Have you seen the jerky gun at The sausage maker web site?? looks a lot like your version of a stuffer with a flattened stuffing tube. They want about 125 USD for it. I think that for small batch sausage making we have the right stuffin'.

Chuckwagon · Post by **Chuckwagon** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 07:21

Hey Ross, you wrote:

Have you seen the jerky gun at The sausage maker web site?? looks a lot like your version of a stuffer with a flattened stuffing tube. They want about 125 USD for it.

What?

Look again ol' pard. And let Nancy clean your glasses from now on.

Here`s a link: http://www.sausagemaker.com/jerkysupplies.aspx

#32082 Jerky Shooter is $29.99
#32086 Jerky Gun (Junior) is $29.99
#32085 Jerky Gun is $49.99

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 13:09

I was wrong. It is Cabela's catalog. Very sorry.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Thu Jul 26, 2012 14:25

I did look at the one sold by Gander Mountain, but dismissed it for a couple of reasons. It was partly the size, and partly the capacity (jerky production rate is pretty low, I would guess), and seems like the one I saw was made of thin polycarbonate plastic. Probably I rejected it because it cost more money than I thought it was worth. (...but then, I don't make jerky, so who am I to say?)

...don't know why I didn't keep on exploring the caulk gun approach until later. As a force multiplier, a caulk gun is pretty good, and that's what was needed for this application.

Maybe a jerky shooter will do the job (anyone out there own one, who would be willing to try stuffing sausage with it?) but, like Ross says, "I think that for small batch sausage making we have the right stuffin'." ...or stuffer. ...or whatever.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Thu Aug 02, 2012 02:31

Followup report on the "Ross-N-Russ Ram-Rod" small batch sausage stuffer.

A couple of days ago, I found a good price on a 4+ lb. pork butt, bought a pound of 80/20 ground beef, and pulled a spare bag of frozen ground pork and a pound of frozen lamb out of the freezer.
---Made a 2+ lb. batch of Hill Country Sausage with beef/pork.
---Make a 2 lb. batch of Loukanikos with pork & lamb.
---With the rest of the ground pork, made less than a pound of a chorizo recipe from Toluca, Mexico, for the next post in my series titled "Chorizos of the Inner Planets." (Gotta finish the Mayan section before December 12, 2012, or it'll be too late.

)

There was just enough left from each batch after stuffing to make and fry a small test patty. Cleanup was easy -- soap and water, then I stuck everything except the caulk gun into the dishwasher. Tonight, we had the loukanikos, some home-made spanikopita (spinach pie), and okra (for our South Carolina guest who now lives in New Joisey.)

Anybody wanna buy a slightly used 5 lb. horn stuffer? With the handle mounted, it would make a good boot scraper next winter.