I and my buddies always keep the tenderloins, back-straps, bigger roasts and then take everything else to a shop and have them make sausage into it.  Depending on the year and success[es] that would yield more than 30 and less than 100 pounds of venison, which, of course, expands 25-30% with added pork or beef.

At that volume of production, 1 x a year, what size grinder and stuffer would I need?

What other pieces of unique equipment would I need.

We all have vacuum packers already.

I'm trying to figure out if it is worth the time and effort.

Right now it is kind of a hassle it take it to and pick it up from the processor.

What are you thoughts and inputs?

Thanks

@spearfisher

What are you using?
What is your setup for this?

I made 240 lbs of deer sausage last year (this year is turning out to be less productive hunting).

I borrow a stuffer & grinder from my cousin. He has LEM 3/4 grinder with foot pedal (invaluable) and a 10 lb stuffer.

#1 It always sounds easier than it actually is. This stuff takes time. I made 50 lbs of summer sausage, 25 lbs of snack sticks, and the rest just "burger". The snack-sticks easily were the most hassle and most time-consuming. I think it took nearly 6 hrs of grinding and stuffing (w/ the assistance of my wife labelling and carrying things to the freezer, and also helping with the stuffing) to get it all done, and that was starting with meat that was already cubed and ready for the grinder.

IMHO, if you ever think you may be stuffing things by yourself then DO NOT get a hand-crank stuffer. It's really hard to handle the casing and crank the handle at the same time. This was where I called in my wife for assistance. If I had to get my own stuffer I would make one of the water-powered PVC stuffers. You can make them as large as you need them and install a food-pedal water valve to control the stuffing action, this way you have both hands available for the stuffing operation.

Don't try to stuff through a grinding horn, it will just heat the meat up, turn it to mush, and generally just suck because it's tedious.

Stuffing horns: the LEM stuffer my cousin has didn't have a horn small enough for snack sticks. Thank goodness I have a machine-shop. I made a Stainless stuffing horn using some 3/8 OD tubing. Small casings need a smaller horn than their ID; I was using 9/16" casings and the 1/2" horn my cousin had wouldn't allow them on.

Other equipment: Meat lugs/totes (I cheat and just get the bus-tubs at Sams club), smoker if you're smoking sausages (you can do it on a cheap smoker but good sausages come from great smokers, and great smokers come at a cost, you need very, very precise temp control to make proper smoked sausages and snack sticks).

Thanks ^

I think

You now have me wondering if just paying $4-5/lb to have it done makes more sense, given the effort you have gone through to do it.

How many years have you been processing your own?

I should have added, I have a pellet smoker with automatic controls.

All I can say, is spend good money on a grinder.  Figure out what size you 'need' and then double it minimum.  Triple to be safe.  I don't grind...but I've helped friends, and using their cheap $100 gander mountain grinders, even if you put everything in the freezer and have really cold meat, it's a joke.  You have to absolutely baby those things or they just don't work.

Stuffer, get the biggest one you can afford, and preferably something powered or if hand cranked make sure you have help, a real solid table, and some heavy duty clamps.

I take mine to the processor...it's the only thing I do take in.  We rarely take in though...maybe once every 3 years I'll shoot two doe and get them made into sausage.  I don't grind any of our deer(we can it), so having a grinder just to make sausage every 3 years doesn't make sense for me.

I think I processed my first deer about 15 years ago. I went through a period in my life where hunting was just more time-consuming and more hassle than it was worth so I didn't hunt for several year. Occasionally during that period a friend or coworker with a full freezer would give me a deer and I'd give 'em some processed goodies back as a thank you. Then we bought a nice rural place a few years back and got back into hunting (got my wife into it too) and started processing again. Last year my wife got 2 and I got 3.

Even at $5/lb & 50 lb/yr, that's only $250/yr. You'll easily have $1000+ in equipment to do smoked sausage etc right. Factor in your time and the consumable costs (fuel for smoker, casings, seasonings, cures, fat additions, etc) and it tips the scale further for processing. My cousin that owns the equipment processes anywhere between 4 & 20 deer per year between his circcle of hunting buddies and in the off-season he processes pigs that are given to him by a farmer (unmarketable for various reasons but still healthy meat).

I can say this much. I won't even break that stuff out unless I have at least 75 lbs of meat to grind. So far this year we've only got 1 deer and that one was shot with a Chevy Silverado... We'll likely just hold that cubed meat in 1 gallon ziplocks in the freezer and run it with the grind next year (unless hunting turns around rather quickly).

So you keep the backstraps, roasts, and tenderloin and turn the rest into sausage. And add 25-30% pork.

That’s not sausage, that’s seasoned shoe leather stuffed into a casing. People make the mistake of thinking “I’ll just grind it into sausage, it’s all the same.” No, it’s not. Once you’ve made GOOD sausage you’ll never go back to grinding up the the inedibles and calling it “sausage.”

My sausage is neck meat, backstraps, and hindquarters (only above the knee). I tediously remove as much silverskin as humanly possible. A healthy doe that hasn’t been shot up  nets about 25# max. Add 40# of pork shoulder. grind venison and pork together with a rough/large grind. Mix in seasonings and work meat. Let mixture cool if needed, regrind with a smaller disc (but not too small).

I’ve gotten to the point that I much prefer our ring sausage to anything else, including backstrap steaks.

You're doing it wrong... it's most certainly NOT seasoned shoe leather.

That being said, I do have to wonder, what do you do with the cuts that are so clearly below your standards? Waste it?

Me personally, I keep the back-straps and inner tenderloins and grind the rest. I also meticulously clean off silverskin & tendons the best I can. A doe nets me about 35-40# of grind meat and about 7-10 lbs of backstraps and tenderloins.

I do keep 2 different batches of grind meat. I keep my premium (the nice roasts from the hind quarters) that I use for venison burgers etc, then the lesser cuts are what get used for sausages and the like...

I have a 1 hp Cabelas grinder.  Bigger is better, you spend much less time trying to cut up chunks o' cold near frozen meat to stuff it in the grinder.  I've used the smaller ones and wouldn't recommend them.

Do not try to stuff sausage with your grinder. It over works the meat and they tend to leave a fair amount of meat in the grinder when you've stuffed all the casings you can stuff.

I have a 5 lb LEM vertical stuffer, with metal gears, that works well for everything from snack stick style sausages, to hog casings (what I use mostly), to larger cooked salami style casings.  I'd have gone with a 10 lb stuffer but it was a little to pricey.  The 5 lb works fine.

We have a 20 lb. manual mixer, also LEM.  It's kinda meh.  It is nice to not have to mix 20 lbs plus up by hand, but it's a pain to clean and it has to be pretty well bolted down.

A good grinder and a good stuffer are the most important tools.  Mixing tubs and refrigerator space are good too.  You want to keep the meat cold, it grinds best when slightly frozen.

I’ve done it for years.

I like homemade sausage.

My advice:

0. Trim your meat- get rid of deer fat, silverskin, and connective tissue as well as you can. Nobody wants gristly sausage.

1. spend a little more on a good grinder. You can burn up the motor on several cheap, low-HP grinders and feel like a fool, or just buy a decent one for a little more.

2. Clean the shit out of everything, before and after. Work in the cold, keep your meat cold.

3. Make small batches of different recipes- find what you and your family like, then scale it up

4. Find a good supplier for pork fat. In a pinch get raw, uncured pork belly. Sausage needs fat. You can try beef fat if you like, but I didn’t care for it.

5. A dedicated stuffer is great, but using your grinder isn’t the end of the world, especially if you know your recipe. Avoid multiple trips through the grinder, especially if you don’t want “forcemeat” type, dense sausage.

6. Don’t be hasty, as long as you can keep your meat cold.  Let the herbs/spices/etc sit with your meat and marry for a while. Hang your cased sausages for a day or two (again, keep cold) before smoking to dry out. Use a pin/needle to let the air out of bubbles in your casing.

7. Unless you really know your recipe and have the right equipment, stick to 5-10 pound batches. When i try to do more than that, scaling the recipe, keeping everything cold, and the general mess seems to be more of an issue, plus I just get tired of messing with it. I’d rather make 3x 10lb batches of sausage than try to do 30# at once.  I’ve also been known to freeze 5# batches of “mix” (meat plus fat), then thaw, season, and stuff them later.

NOTE: everybody has a blowout once in a while stuffing sausage. Don’t sweat it- tie off the ends, squeeze out the excess, and put it back through the stuffer.

Some good styles of sausage for deer meat:
1. Andouille (go a little heavier on the pork on this one, I actually mix 40/40/20 deer/pork shoulder/fat)
2. Hungarian kolbasz (paprika sausage)
3. Maple/sage breakfast sausage (loose/patty style)
4. Spicy Sicilian (also ridiculously good with just wild hog)

Grind the back straps?  

You do whatever you want with your deer, but there's no way in hell I'm going to grind the absolute best parts of the deer.  Inner loins and back straps do not get ground into sausage.  The entire POINT of sausage is to use up the parts of the animal that aren't that great for use in other ways.  Grind it up, put a bunch of seasoning in it, smoke it, and make it palatable.

Do you buy USDA Prime rib roats and grind that into burger meat to make Taco meat out of?