I have made sausage several times both ways smoked and natural and have never been satisfied with the texture of the sausage after it was stuffed into the casings. I have a small electric grinder smiliar to the Cabelea's heavy duty 400 watt grinder. The texture never seems to be rock solid nd is a little mushy. What am I doing wrong and how do I get the texture of the sausage solid?

post your recipe and I can tell you if its a balanced mix. Question #1 how are you stuffing the sausage? using the grinder or a stuffer ? At what temp is your meat when grinding. and when was the last time your grinder plate was lapped true and the knife sharpened.
a dull knife or untrue (flat) plate can smear the meat mix and make it mushy, so can warm temp of the meat, it should be as near freezing as possible, the same goes for mixing, cold is good. Its possible you are over working the meat mix if you are trying to stuff through your grinder. If using the grinder have you removed the plate and knife and replaced them with a spacer?

The recipe usally are from a sausage house already pre-mixed. I am using the grinder to stuff the sausage and when I stuff I do remove the knife & plate and use the spacer and the proper size stuffing tube. The water I use cimes from my well and is quite cold but I don't think it is 32 deg. Sholud I set in frezzerfor a time period? The meat is always at a temp around 35 deg when mixed.

As far as the knife and plates goes, I have replaced the knife several times to be sure I have a sharp one on. The plates are the originals and appear to be flat. What is having your plate lapped true mean? How do you go about doing that?

What do you mean over worked the meat using your grinder? I put the venison and pork thru the grinder using the largest hole plate, then I put the meat thru the smallest hole plate for a second finer choppped meat. Then I remove the plates, knife and put the spacer and stuffer tube on and put the fine ground meat thru and into the casings. Italian sausage or summer sausage or any just dont look like this .................your meat texture is solid and hard packed

to lap a plate it is placed on a flat stone and worked until it is totally flat, both sides. What is your mix of meat to fat? for a good sausage it should be in the 25-30% range.
I grind my meat semi frozen, add my spice mixture then regrind again. I then put it back in the freezer to get cold then mix then stuff.I use a stuffer





Mixing is a very important part. You must kneed the meat mixture until it binds. Once it binds it becomes a sticky mass it will only bind if just above freezing if you get to say 37 F you can work it and the fat, water and meat won't bind, the fat will just smear. If doing it by hand, your hands should be almost frozen and should take about 10 minutes of vigirous mixing. I use a hand crank mixer as it just gets too cold on the hands to mix properly.
Read the ingredients on your commercialspice mix to see how much if any bread crumbs are in the mix as this also makes for a loose texture. Really what you have to watch is your meat/fat/water ratio and any fillers that might be in the mix

Thanks I got you PM nice site.

I tend to make a 50/50 mixture. I will follow you advice you sure is heck seem to know what you are doing by the looks of the finished product!

50/50 mixture ?

big guy thanks for the post i think i will try to make some know it helps alot learning about it before you try it. thanks