Made some brats.....w pics

I made some brats last Sunday.

Tested my new stuffer and tweaked my Brat recipe a bit.
It all worked out very well.











Enjoy the sausage porn

thanks Kevin

I swear...I was expecting you to say you made some babies......but congrats on the sausage. Lol

Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer.

masskrug said:

Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer. Sausage and beer.

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that is what I was thinking too

I made some today! Great minds. I made Italian venison sausage in natural casings.

Are you guys in the food industry? Do you cook for an army? or just bulk freeze.
OP your prep table/area/stuffer looks amazing. Wish i could have something like that.

We need more info on that DIY stuffer!

Looks like a good time. About a month ago my dad, and friend, and I made about a hundred pounds of different sausages with pork. We made some regular links, some cooked sausage, we smoked some pork sausage, and just keep some in bulk. It is always a good time. We usually make around 800 pounds of sausage a year between us and some family.

I like your water stuffer, we have one that is very similar that is an air stuffer. It works pretty well, But we normally use a geared stuffer.

Johnnyhitch1 said:

Are you guys in the food industry? Do you cook for an army? or just bulk freeze.
OP your prep table/area/stuffer looks amazing. Wish i could have something like that.

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That was just 15 pounds... by the time I gave a few packages away and cooked some up the next day that left me with 6 packages.
Pork was on sale for .99 so that was some cheap sausage.

CL is your friend for stainless tables.
Ebay for an old Enterprise grinder that you can motorize.
Any one can make a water stuffer.

pickles said:

We need more info on that DIY stuffer!

Click to expand...

Pretty simple...sort of
Go to lowes and get a 6" pvc pipe, glue cap, and male clean out.
Glue it all together.
Tap a couple of fittings in the side at the bottom in the cap... I used 1/2" this is your water in and water out.
You will need to control the water in and out so you will need a valve on both the in and out side. I used a foot controlled switch to run a water solenoid so I can stuff hands free.

Go to a kitchen store and/or McMasterCarr and get some 1/2 cutting board type material and some 1/4 Silicon Orings, I got some that were 6" or a bit under that, cut 3 circles to rough size of 6 1/8" of the plastic.
Have a friend with a lathe cut the 6" down to size and turn an oring grove in them also. ( I have been told that this can be down by hand on a drill press but I have not tried it )

Now for the lid you sausage tube you have a few options -
I over did it and used sanitary fitting sandwiched up under the clean out lid.
You can use 1 or 3/4 pvc fittings and tap a hole in the lid as an option.
I think the simplest way would be to drill a hole in the lid, about 1" and push a plastic tube in through it so the collar of the tube would be on the inside of the lid...

I am working on version 2 and 3 currently, bigger and better This one was just a proof of concept design really.

I can post some details in another thread of someone wants to see more of the current and future stuffers.

You can google water powered stuffer and hydro stuffer and find some good stuff.
There is one video on a floridasportsman forum that was great DIY source.
Using the 2" sanitary fittings and a #8 sausage stuffer tube set was my idea though... I did not copy that one !

thanks Kevin

bdawson said:

Looks like a good time. About a month ago my dad, and friend, and I made about a hundred pounds of different sausages with pork. We made some regular links, some cooked sausage, we smoked some pork sausage, and just keep some in bulk. It is always a good time. We usually make around 800 pounds of sausage a year between us and some family.

I like your water stuffer, we have one that is very similar that is an air stuffer. It works pretty well, But we normally use a geared stuffer.

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Last year we did close to 1500 pounds in one day with a 2 gear stuffer.
I am tired of that so time to upgrade equipment.
The stuffer is the bottleneck of the process.

This year will be 2 days about 650ish both days.

The smoke house gets too crowded when it goes over 900 pounds.

Why would you use the geared stuffer over the air one?

thanks Kevin

haeffnkr said:

Last year we did close to 1500 pounds in one day with a 2 gear stuffer.
I am tired of that so time to upgrade equipment.
The stuffer is the bottleneck of the process.

This year will be 2 days about 650ish both days.

The smoke house gets too crowded when it goes over 900 pounds.

Why would you use the geared stuffer over the air one?

thanks Kevin

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Yeah, I know what you mean. Our biggest year was 1800 in a day. It is very tiring and our smokehouse was packed to the gills. Its better when you only do a couple days with 600 pound batches. We have a 200 pound mixer so it comes out to like 3 batches.

We dont have like an old enterprise stuffer. Our stuffer is geared really well and works nice. My dad and I both just prefer the regular stuffer because it is easier to control. Easier to feel it. And we usually have 5-6 guys so we just switch. The only thing we stuff that is really a challenge is smokies, pork sausage and summer sausage casings are easy to stuff.

bdawson said:

We dont have like an old enterprise stuffer. Our stuffer is geared really well and works nice. My dad and I both just prefer the regular stuffer because it is easier to control. Easier to feel it. And we usually have 5-6 guys so we just switch. The only thing we stuff that is really a challenge is smokies, pork sausage and summer sausage casings are easy to stuff.

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I am playing with my Enterprise grinder for my limited use only.

Dad has a monster Hobart 3 phase beast that will shoot meat across the room... he actually had to make a gaurd for it.

Yes have a bunch of guys to help also, but I am looking forward to using a water pressured stuffer that will have consistent pressure.
I do a lot of the stuffing and I have to "learn" how to keep in sync with the cranker... if you get in a tune it goes pretty fast though...until you have to load up again

thanks Kevin

Yeah, we have a Hobart grinder as well, so much better. You don't have to cut up the meat to stew meat size before you grind it. As long as the chuck fits in the grinder it will grind it. What size grinder do you guys have, #32? or bigger?

If I crank I just watch the casing and the person stuffing and can tell what to do. Yeah, it is the longest precess to load the stuffer each time. Our Stuffer will do 11 sticks of summer sausage per fill. My dad has been doing this for probably 40 years and I have been for probably close to 20. When we get in there to make sausage we can do a couple hundred pound batch in no time. We have a system that works pretty well.

You guys are awesome! I did about 30 pounds total with a kitchen aid mixer and some attachments! It's fun though and the results taste good.

I have a kitchen aid mixer and grinder also.

For small batches a kitchen aid mixer with the old style Hobart grinder attachment is a great setup.