Hunter's Sticks
 

Recently a good friend of mine talked me into processing my deer. He had just spent some big $$$ at Cabela's and bought the 3/4 h.p.commercial grade grinder, meat mixer, etc. Grinding the meat up for burger was extremely easy, as was stuffing the big 3" casings. Things went progressively downhill when we tried making the hunter's sticks, using the small casing tube on the grinder. We ran meat thru the grinder several times, as well as adding the spices. Probelm was it took a enormous amount of force on the plastic plunger, used to feed the auger, to get anything to come out of the smallerstuffer tube. My shoulder almost fell off after making only a modest amount of the hunter's sticks!!!! We had to be doing something wrong, but for the life of me I don't know what!!! Anyone else have this problem, and if so how'd you get around it.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

To make the small snack sticks you need a sausage stuffer. A stuffing horn on the end of a grinder just won't get it done.Forcing meat into a small tube requires a lot of force even with a stuffer. Snack sticks are a lot of work . They will be a challenge for some one just learning to make sausage.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

Make sure your meat is really cold, almost with ice crystals in it. Start with a larger plate 1/2-3/8"then regrind with a smaller one 3/16-1/8". Also if it starts getting tuff clean the silver skin or tendond from the blade.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

Take the plate out - that way all the grinder is doing is pushing the meat into the stuffer tube.

All the good butchers around here tells me that.

I have a old Enterprise Sausage Stuffer and it has a crank and will push meat out as fast as you can crank it.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

Making snack sized sausage isnt hard tomake when the right equipment is used and a grinder isntwhat I would reccomend. There is just to much pressure need when stuffing such a small casing. If a grinder is all that you have I would suggest add water to the meat mixture to more fluid, this isnt going to affect the taste any but may add just a little more drying time. A thing to remember is that when you add seasonings especially salt, it acts as binder and makes the meat set up and harden. The more time that the meat sits after the seasonings are added harder it's going to be to push through a stuffing tube.

Now days I use either a hydraulic or a electric driven 30# vertical stuffer, they really making stuffing a breeze whether it's an 1 1/2" tube for summer sausage or the tiny 1/2" for snack sticks.

Again.... a little water added to the ground meat sure aids in stuffing the small sizes.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

Good advice doubleA

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

I have both a water stuffer for summer sausagesand a JerkyCannon from LEM for snack sticks. The Jerky Cannon with the round3/8" tube works effortlessly at making snack sticks. I can shoot a 5 pound batch into 19mm casings in no time.

www.lemproducts.com/product/354/jerky_cannon_accessories

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

A jerky cannon works great but would you do 50# through one? I would suggest getting the small sausage stuffer (11 lbs)from Cabela's it will stuff the small sticks ok (my buddy has this one and I've used it)but you will notice more resistance when filling them than filling larger casings. I have the medium size stuffer(20 lbs) from Cabelas and a small (8 lb) from LEM the Cabelas is not good for the small casings as I get quite a bit of blow by of my main piston when trying to do the small casings. I use the Lem. Its just basic physics the cabelas piston is much bigger than the one on the LEM so it takes more force to squeeze the meat through the small hole.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

After getting ticked off with mine, I finally took out the plate AND the blade. Things went MUCH smoother after that! What was taking me severl minutes, only took a few seconds after I removed those parts.

RE: Hunter's Sticks
 

Jeez, I just fought my way through stuffing 20 lbs of brats then realized Id left the plate in my grinder[&o]