LEM Products Sausage Stuffing Kit Import To Shop ×Product customization General Description Gallery Reviews Variations

Not really a 5 pound capacity, but still good. Casings included are not the best.This review is of the kit that contains the LEM MIGHTY BITE 5 lbs sausage stuffer, the spice mix assortment, the sausage cases, and the instruction book.First thing I did with this was to coarsely grind 5 lbs of pork shoulder, (measured on a scale to within 0.1 oz of meat, before grinding), mix it with the supplied spice and cure packet and about 6oz of water, mix it in a bowl, and put it into the tub. Yes, the 5 lbs of meat fit into the nice stainless tub, but just barely. Mechanically, to make sausage, the plunger has to go maybe an inch and a half into the tub. I pushed the plunger in to see what happened. The plunger part has an o-ring that seals the meat down mostly, and that o-ring is near the top of the plunger, so until the plunger goes far enough in that the O-ring engages meat squirts everywhere. Meat all over. I cleaned up the meat and got on with it. I stuffed the summer sausage cases supplied full, and they would not hold 5 lbs of meat. I had to use some of the collagen case as well.I note that the instruction book for the stuffer shows a stainless steel stuffing tube. The tubes you get are actually molded nylon, which is not a bad choice. You get to see the sausage moving up the tube, which is important. The issue I have is that each of the tubes had a burr on the opening away from the retaining ring. This is the part you put the sausage casings over. Different casings have different degrees of resisting damage from burrs, and the manual even warns that a burr can rip the casing. It took a few minutes work with a knife edge and a fingernail to smooth out the burrs. For something like this, where burrs matter, it seems like the factory should take care of it, or the mold should be designed without a seal at that critical part. Then again, it is likely that a stainless tube would not have had such a burr. They may have just switched to nylon and are using their old stock of books.Once I accepted that the machine would not actually hold 5 lbs of meat, and so forth, I was VERY pleased with the operation. I could stop extruding meat whenever I wanted. I could use more pressure or less by controlling how tightly I retained the casing while cranking. I had previously made some sausage using a grinder, and this machine is so much better. That is why it still gets 4 stars and why I am not returning it.The spicesI have used the summer sausage spice mix and tasted the sausage. It is ok. There does not seem to be any provision for acidifying the sausage… No lactic acid culture, no encapsulated citric acid. There is no mustard seed (common in recipes) and no significant smoke flavoring. The cure is in a separate little packet in the spice bag and it was such that I would not try to make a partial batch (there are instructions for doing so, but I didn’t want to attempt the measurement required, since the cure to meat ratio is very important). I will make summer sausage again, but with different casings and a different recipe. I will probably use Morton Tender Quick, spices from my kitchen, something to acidify the sausage, and liquid smoke.Sweet Italian SausageI used the supplied collagen casings and made a 2.5 batch because that was what was left after my dog stole the bone and the meat that I still had to butcher. She ate it all, including the bone. She is sick now. The smell of the packet was exactly like sweet Italian sausage you buy at the store. It was easy to make a half batch, at two level teaspoons per pound. I over filled one case and it burst when I tried to make it into links. My fault, I knew better. I recovered the meat and tried again.The sausage is in the fridge now and I will cook it for dinner. If it is not 5 star quality, I will edit this review.All the packets include instructions and a table for making a partial batch. Only the summer sausage uses a cure.The BookThe book is substantial. It is not a pamphlet with a few recipes. It is trade paperback size, 367 pages, and loaded with pictures and so forth. It adds to the value of the package, as opposed to being a pamphlet that just presents recipes that use the LEM spice mixtures.Wow. It contains a lot of recipes. It also contains a lot of political activism. Now, I am particularly interested in summer sausage. Hmm, look in the index. Venison summer sausage. No, I want to use pork and maybe beef. Ok, there is one recipe for all beef summer sausage, I can probably start with that and adapt it, add just a pinch of sage and maybe marjoram.It is divided into three sections. The first, the basics, is excellent. It is all stuff you can get online… But here it is, all in one place. You read this, and understand it, you will have a basic knowledge of making all sorts of sausage.The second section is the sausage recipes. The recipes themselves were fascinating to me. The biographies and all of the politics were not. Honestly, I understand about humanely raising meat, and I understand how free range chicken tastes better. I don’t need it pounded into me by 100 little short articles (ok, not 100, it just seemed that way) and, maybe the biographies were a trade-off to get the recipes.But they have a recipe for mortadella. I love real Italian mortadella. It is a really complicated recipe, involving freezing, blanching, grinding, ice baths, a long time in a food processor, where you use the heat of grinding to heat the mass, and, finally, cooking in a plastic wrap bag. I want to do it, I just need a food processor. Sigh. I’m sure Amazon has them for sale.Section 3, cooking with sausageI have only flipped through this section and looked up a couple of recipes. I got the feeling that this was more packed than the sausage recipes, things stopped in the middle of the page, and a new recipe started. I checked a couple of the recipes I knew, and I thought they were good adaptations and would produce decent quality stuff. Some of the recipes were fascinating. I am going to try the mini corn dog recipe on my grandkids. A couple of the recipes were fascinating, like the mini scotch eggs made with quail eggs. But in the end I would have liked more sausage recipes as opposed to cooking with sausage recipes. Hmm. Maybe there are not more sausage recipes?In the end, I like this package. It needs a smaller sized casing as well. It needs enough summer sausage casing to actually hold 5 lbs of meat. It needs hog rings and pliers to close the sausage casings.But I am going to keep it, and I am going to use the other spice packets.Edit:. I have included a pic of uncooked sweet Italian sausage. The second pic is cooking Italian sausage. Note that every single casing split almost as soon as I put it into the pan. I won’t be using those casings again.

Did not include book as promised but product works phenomenallyDid not include book. Can’t figure out to get book without returning whole product.

Love itOk, so if you are like me, you tried stuffing using a grinder. Doesn’t turn out so well. So now you are looking at stuffers. I researched them all. I picked this one for the extras. I was hung up on the plastic stuffing horns, and the one speed, some have two speeds. This stuffer to my surprise is what I was looking for, Exactly! What a dream, it took me less than 20 minutes to stuff 12 lbs. Out of a full canister of meat, I filled up two natural casings . one person operation, I was so afraid this wasn’t going to be what I wanted and it turned out to be exactly what I wanted and needed. If you are looking for an alternative to a grinder, look no more. Easy to use, easy to clean. This is one of the best things that I ever purchased. I process my own venison, if you do also, do yourself a favor and look no further. I got this yesterday, used it today, couldn’t be more pleased.

Nice setupThis drastically cut the time it took to make meat sticks with the caulk gun style I was using. just wish I had got the 7lb version being that when you do a 5lb batch you’ll have about a half pound of meat that doesn’t fit(because of the added ingredients and water to the meat)

Poor quality during manufacturingThis is a followup to my original post, I contacted the customer service department concerning the quality issue, I sent a picture of the unit highlighting the faulty weld and with in 1 hour a new one was on the way I an raising my product rating to 4 stars vice one star. THey atleast stand behind their products.! Here is the first post I submitted.”I used this for the first time this weekend and the weld where the stuffing tube attached to the body of the unit has hole in it and allows product to to spill out the side of the stuffing tube, Poor Quality Assurance at best,”