[Birdie Wife]

Following on from my sausage making attempts over the last few days, I am feeling that my budget mincer from Lidls just isn't up to the task.  Any little bits of connective tissue or sinew result in a clogged machine, very quickly.  It's done us not too badly over the last couple of years, and at £25 I'm not going to complain too loud, but I think it's time for something with a bit more grunt. Budget/Santa would probably stretch up to £150.

Any suggestions?

[Birdie Wife]

Bumping this up.. because my mincer blew a fuse last night while we were stuffing our sausage casings! It was really hard work... I think it just wasn't up to the job.  We may well get a separate sausage stuffer.

I'd really like to hear about what machines you've got out there that work, even if they are much less than what I've got budgeted!

[shetlandpaul]

we bought the one from ascotts and even that struggles try a hand one it may be more work but it should last a lot longer.

[Hilarysmum]

I had a big almost industrial one, which I managed to blow up before it set itself on fire.  Go for a good hand one unless you are doing more than a couple of pigs at a time.

[Birdie Wife]

I had a big almost industrial one, which I managed to blow up before it set itself on fire.  Go for a good hand one unless you are doing more than a couple of pigs at a time.

  thanks!!

[Lord Summerisle]

The Tre Spade ones from Weschenfelder's are very good. Just keep clonking and grinding away - I've done a whole pig or red deer before now with one.

[Birdie Wife]

Brilliant, just the job  weschenfelder page now bookmarked and mincers page printed out for DH's perusal (he's still wondering what to get me for Christmas )

[r+lchick]

I got a brilliant one from Northern Tools.  It is nearly industrial and has all the gubbings for making sausage making. 

[Rollicker]

You can't beat a Kitchenaid bit of kit. We've got the food processor which will chop, slice, shred, mince etc no problem. Also have the food mixer to which you can fit loads of extras i.e mincer and sausage stuffer. Not cheap but will last a lifetime!

[Lord Summerisle]

The mixer attachment types are OK for smaller amounts, but you need to pitch your choice of mincer at the volume you're going to use, or you just end up wasting money on the thing. We always do a session on choice of machinery at our pork butchery weekends for this very reason.

My own recommendations for more than making a few pounds here and there are, at the lower end of volume, a Porkert manual mincer - you can shift a hell of a lot through that. Then you have the Tre Spade types, basically a scaled-down commercial machine. Then the big jobs. We paid £1500 for ours second-hand from Windsor Food Machinery (superb service), it will mince 20kg of pork in about 38 seconds on the 10mm plate. It's a Sirman no. 32, which my missus has named Stephen Fry, because it's a huge great mincer.

[JulieS]

Could you let me know details of your pork butchery weekends please?  Just what I'm looking for at the moment.

[Lord Summerisle]

We're not doing another until April 23-25th, taking a gap as we're moving our operations from Devon to Wales. As that will be the first in the new location, we'll probably be doing a discount.

If you PM me your email, I'll send you all the details.

[Wizard]

A good place to look is Nisbetts .co.uk a very good tool and its a mid price machine.Its on page 507 in the catalogue and there is a horizontal stuffer on the same page.Hope this helps

[Crofter]

I'd also recommend Northern Tools for butchery kit.  We have the 1Kw electric mincer and it is great.  We minced over 100 lbs of beef mince last weekend and it never missed a beat.  It comes with sausage stuffing attatchments but we later bought a vertical sausage stuffer from them too and it is SO much quicker.
http://www.northerntooluk.com/food-preparation/electric-meat-grinders/80kg-per-hr-electric-meat-grinder-and-free-tenderiser-.html
http://www.northerntooluk.com/food-preparation/manual-grinders-and-mills/vertical-sausage-stuffer_604005E.html?fhsearchterm=Sausage&search=SEARCH

Dave

[Kirsten]

Following on from my sausage making attempts over the last few days, I am feeling that my budget mincer from Lidls just isn't up to the task.  Any little bits of connective tissue or sinew result in a clogged machine, very quickly.  It's done us not too badly over the last couple of years, and at £25 I'm not going to complain too loud, but I think it's time for something with a bit more grunt. Budget/Santa would probably stretch up to £150.

Any suggestions?

I use an attachment for my very old Kenwood chef.  It has the mincer and sausage stuffing attachments.  Brilliant.  I can easily make 10lb of sausages using this.  But if you are looking at larger bulk than definately go for a more commercial level one.