Until now I have been using a 3 KG Hungarian plastic stuffer. I am well pleased with its performance. It has a single speed rack and pinion drive, comes with 3 filler tubes and a clamp for securing it to the table / worktop. This in itself was a bit annoying inasmuch that when clamping, it would leave an indentation on the underside of my Iroko table, Nobody can see it but I know it's there. Could have used a wooden buffer but never did.
Now the Reber. What a fantastic piece of kit. People on this forum said I would be pleased, and I am.
I made 4 different kinds of sausage from 2 shoulder joints, 2 blade joints and a piece of belly.
The first noticable difference to what I am used to is the weight. The Reber oozes quality. It is a well made machine, mainly of metal. The majority of it is stainless steel. It has rack and pinion drive and comes with 2 speeds. With my single speed there would come a point when I had to invoke my leg once per revolution, but on the Reber low gear I did not have this problem. I could manage it easily. The torque is just right.
It seems a case of getting what you pay for, although this was a freebie. Having used it I would not hesitate in buying one. It comes with 4 filler tubes and these are a fair bit longer than I am used to, they were a nice addition inasmuch as I only had to load them with casings twice, normally it would have been 4 times for the 4 mixes. The taper of the fillers is quite a bit 'slower' so the casings seemed to flow off a lot easier. Also, the amount of mix left in the base of the main body when the piston reaches it's maximum, is a lot less than with my plastic one. I unscrewed the filler and poked the rest of the mix into the casing with the handle of a wooden spoon, thus utilising all the mix for sausages. When bringing the piston onto the mix, it was easy to 'wiggle' the body up and down against the piston prior to locking it, to expel air, thus eliminating any surprise casing explosions.
Cleaning it between mixes was a bit more cumbersome than my plastic one, but it is a lot bigger and heavier, and was expected. All in all this is a very efficient piece of sausage making equipment.
I will keep my redundant plastic stuffer as a spare, although judging by the quality of the Reber, I doubt I will need a spare.
Regards, Paul Kribs
