You don't need to tie any knots for regular sausage. Fill the entire casing, and then pinch where you want a link to start and end, and twist. Also, because there is no blade spinning against a plate, you can push your sausage mix down a little at a time with one hand, and hold the casing with the other. With very little practice, you will be pumping out pounds of sausage, trust me. ( and from now on I will spell "coarse" correctly. How embarrassing! )
Wow, that is a nice grinder! I had one for years that burned up, it had a coarse plate that I liked for making pepper relish, it chopped it nicely. I replaced it with this in 2008, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AXDVK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 but it didn't have the coarse, "wagon wheel" blade. Now I have to mince my relish by hand, but it sure makes easy work of venison and other meat!
Best thing about all this is you know what you are feeding your family. I am lucky and have access to a very good local butcher shop. We can get whatever we want with no threat of pink slime or poisonings. The meats are all local. The fish is right off the boat. Prices are reasonable. Good luck with your new meat grinder and happy hunting this fall.
To be fair, I had pushed about 58# of chuck through this thing and was probably loading it too quickly. I tend to try and rush near the end of big, long, jobs. I wasn't trying to kill it but it didn't wear out as much as I finally exceeded it's capabilities. I've also never run meat through a grinder twice. One grind and then package. I plan to try a second grind with this machine to see what happens.
That much meat at one time probably was a strain. The one I had before lasted me almost 30 years, but that was how they made them. I don't use this one as much as I used to, as it is just me nowadays, but I do stop through a job to unclog it of sinew and junk. I don't grind twice, either, never saw the need for it, as I don't make sausage. But I think sausage might be improved by a second grind.
Dads got a old Hobart Grinder that a old farmer use to use for his beef and pig butchering. He got it when I was like 30 years ago. I don't know how many Deer has been butchered through that thing, but its seen a bunch. But this thread has me thinking now. But as far as the course and then fine, we always doubled ground our hamburger, with no extra fat/tallow added. It makes some awesome chilli that way...
So what do you do with ground pork? It's obviously cheaper but do you only spice it for sausage or do you use it in place of ground beef?
Ground pork is generally used for sausage. That would be ground once with the coarse plate. It can also be used together with beef, ground once coarse, once or twice more with the fine plate, for meatballs or meatloaf.
Use it like you would beef...or at least that's what I do. Ground pork shoulder has a lot of flavor and makes good burgers, taco filling, etc.
I got the grinder. It's a hoss. The grinder head seems very heavy. I put it together and plugged it in to test run it and am quite impressed by how quietly this thing runs. No whining sound of gears, just the thump thump thump of the auger flutes whipping past the #12 throat. So I am just dying to grind something.
Guys, I ground the bajeepers out of 30# of beef. Used a couple of tricks, meat in the freezer for 30 minutes before cutting with a fish fillet knife into strips. Back into the freezer for 30 minutes. Then threw them through the grinder with the small holes (3/16?) and in one pass the burger was done. As an experiment I tried to push some through a second time. No bueno. Total PITA and you had to push every bit down the throat, it makes a vacuum, sucks, etc. One grind is all that's happening and it turned out great. The grinder was very fast and very quiet. We were done quickly. Everything on the grinder is stainless steel so cleanup was super easy. I could have used the dishwasher in the house but the hot water at my shop sink plus dawn soap was excellent. Can't wait to do it again. Probably do 60 next time as it goes really fast.
Glad it worked out for you. I would suggest though, skipping the freezing part, cutting the meat into strips, run through with the coarse grind plate, then the fine grind plate. As coarse ground, the meat will remain loose, and easily fall through the neck to the auger. ( just my professional opinion! ) ( I would also mix some bacon in there, just because! )
