www.sausagemaking.org

I've had moderate success in making a sausage stuffer. I'm posting this information here simply to throw in some ideas for other beginners who might want to experiment.

Here is the stuffer showing the main frame, the lever, the syringe body and the plunger:



Here's a side view of the frame. In this picture the plunger has been pulled to bits to show how it is made (this isn't the only way to make it of course):



This is how it would be used. In practice, my left hand would be holding the casing on the nozzle and pushing down on the whole thing to anchor it:



I'm fortunate to have access to some fairly good metalworking gear.

The main syringe body is a six-inch length of 3 inch diameter stainless steel tube. The nozzle is stainless tube with a 5/8" outside diameter, which means the sausage mix gets forced through a hole little more than 1/2" in diameter. Both tubes are welded to a common bit of stainless steel flat plate.

The plunger end is made from some inch-thick plastic (nylon? polyethylene?) cutting board. The plunger shaft is just a 3/8" stainless bolt. The plastic plunger is tapped with a screw thread to take this bolt. The plunger assembly is reinforced with the stepped sleeve and bit of tube shown in the middle picture. I didn't have these two items for a start, but when I saw how much force was necessary to move the sausage through the small hole, I figured I needed them to stop the plastic thread getting stripped. Of course I could have used another idea to make a stronger shaft, but I had these two items on hand.

I had hoped that all I'd need would be the syringe body and plunger, but I was wrong. With my strength being distributed over the relatively large plunger diameter, I could barely get the meat moving.

By using a bigger diameter nozzle and a smaller diameter syringe tube, less force should be required to extrude the sausage mix....but less volume would have to be loaded for a tube of the same length. As it is, this system holds probably less than half a kilo of mix.

When I first made the plunger, I allowed only a few thousandths of an inch clearance between the plunger and the bore of the syringe tube. While this was good in theory, I found that the tube was slightly out of round and the plunger jammed. So I had to make the plunger substantially smaller. I thought that I might have to fit an o-ring to the cylindrical surface of the plunger to make it seal properly, but I found that the chunks in the mix made an effective seal...so the o-ring is not necessary. Perhaps if I had a very liquid mix, I would have to think about adding an o-ring.

Finding it virtually impossible to force mix through the nozzle with just the simple syringe arrangement, I had to make some sort of a 'machine' to help me. An elaborate stuffer might have a 'rack and pinion', or screw jack system, but I wanted to get going quickly with minimal expense and effort. I made up the frame pictured from aluminium channel section, a short bit of aluminium angle section, some bolts, and a couple of stainless pipe spacers.

At the rear of the assembly (the nozzle end is the front), I have four bolts spaced along to match the 'travel' of the plunger. I use a bit of stainless steel flat bar as a lever, using each bolt as a fulcrum point in turn.

This stuffer isn't simple to use, but it does the job for the quantities of sausages I will be making as I experiment. Today I made up a relatively coarse, dry Boerewors mix, and I found that I could extrude it through the machine....although it wasn't easy. Sometimes I would have to apply considerable pressure...then I'd get a great 'ejaculation' of sausage meat flying out.

Boerewors strikes me as being a relatively dry, stiff mix. With a fattier or wetter mix I imagine that the extrusion process would be easier.

Also, if I'd somehow fabricated a tapered nozzle I MAY have found that the machine took less force to operate. But a tapered nozzle isn't simple to make compared to a bit of tube, and more mix is left in a tapered or bigger nozzle once the plunger reaches the end of its travel.

My main current sausage-making goal is the production of Droewors. So I need something like this with a small nozzle.

Anyway...I just thought I'd share the results of my experiments. I'm considering the option of buying a nice commercial stuffer, but meanwhile this will keep me going.

Hi Coote


Well done!!!! that is impressive

If you are only making relatively small batches of sausages, you might be interested in a Hobby Stuffer, there is one sold on this site. It is also sold by Northern Tools. (sometimes discounted)They are vertical Stuffer, very easy to use and clean.

Outstanding I like the pictures, and admire enguinity

TonyE

Thanks Tony....I'll check it out.

Hi Coote,

Since you are in NZ you might want to have a look at
Dunninghams ITI stuffer

I have just bought one of these and it appears similar to the hobby stuffer often mentioned in this forum. Have also just placed an order for casings with them as the butcher I used previously has retired

cheers

You're right Quark...that stuffer looks very much like the hobby stuffer. I should research it a bit. Thanks.

I've bought sausage casings from a local butchery. Nice folks. One length of large natural casing allegedly big enough for 6kg of mix cost me NZ$. Today I bought some synthetic chipolata casings....each casing cost me NZ$5 and the guy reckoned I should get maybe 3kg into each casing. Not particularly cheap, but it will get me going. I should check out the prices of casings from a supplier like you are using. Better still, I need to get out and get some intestines.

To give you an idea of prices:

I was paying 23 NZ$ for a hank of regular hog casings, enough for about 40kg of boerewors at my butcher.

Dunninghams has quoted me:
17NZ$ exc GST for a hank of their American Standard Hog casings which is apparently the commonly used one that they supply.

87 NZ$ for either 2 hanks or 5 hanks(big difference I know but I can't remember whether I asked for the net,2 hanks, or knot, 5 hanks, price) of their chipolata sized sheep casings.

Devro chipolata collagen casings were over a 100 NZ$ so didn't even write the number down.

Gosh...thanks for going to all that trouble to note all the prices.

It seems that my butcher charged me a reasonable price when I compare my charge to yours. Mine came out at a few cents more per kg of sausages, but that is only reasonable considering that I bought a 'broken pack'.

I figure that meanwhile I can just make patties with my fresh sausage mix experiments, and save my casings money for the dried sausage I want to play with.

I've made casings from possum gut, but I want to get a deer or a goat now to get a decent length of the stuff and to get some casings that are generally big enough to fit on the nozzle of my stuffer.

Instead of scraping the intestine with a knife, I pulled it through a handful of coarse rosemary leaves and twigs a few times. I turned the casing inside out and 'scraped' both surfaces this way. I don't know if this method will suffice for the casings from larger animals, but it certainly pulled a lot of the stringy tissue and mucus-like stuff from the possum intestines.

These 'home brew' casings will only cost me time, but I quite enjoy the 'craft'.

The stuffer quark posted a link to looks identical to my hobby stuffer from the photo, although I can't tell if the materials are exactly the same. There is often some confusion as to whether the stuffing tube will be stainless steel or chrome unless it is clearly stated.

Dave

re the stuffer's construction ...


Foot plate, frame and screw are all treated metail i.e. not stainless.

The body/container is stainless steel with a plastic nut to lock on 3 different size plastic stuffing tubes (already have a friend making up some in stainless).

Gears are nylon or similar material.

Plunger is of nylon or similar material with a O ring and a air valve of sorts. It also screws off the screw for cleaning.

Loading and unloading is a simple matter of turning plunger to the top and the body simply slides out.

Everything comes apart easily for cleaning.

I would describe the construction as very rigid and strong although not neatly made e.g. the handle fits loosley and some of the welds aren't pretty. But no faults. At the price I am more than happy and can't see me needing another unless I suddenly start making a lot more sausage.