LEM Products Mighty Bite Vertical Stainless Steel 5 Pound Capacity Sausage Stuffer with Plastic Stuffing Tubes

Why did I not buy one of these sooner. It works great and I can process 5 to 10 pounds of sausage in no time at all. You crank at the speed you want to fill your casings so I can do it at the speed I can handle by myself no problem. The only time consuming part is not related tot he device which is putting the casings on. I am getting better but that probably takes as much time as going through a full container of filling. With an air escape valve it presses it down flat and you never get air pushing through. You do need to not fill it right to the top because some will push out as the top part starts going down. once the ring washer is inside the tube nothing comes back out. When you are done you have very little meat in the cylinder and only meat in the tub. It would be a nice add on to supply something to get the meat out of the tube. I recently did 12 pounds and really took less than a half hour with most of that putting casings on and fixing when the casing would break which was my fault. Still not sure how much pressure to put put on the casing to insure it is filled. I worked with other people a while back and that was a problem they had too so it is not related to this filler. Cleanup is not especially easy mostly because of the size of the cylinder and the grease from the sausage I made. The gasket really needs to be removed to clean it completely but I use an oyster knife to pry it out and so far no hint of causing any damage. I do put some olive oil on it before using it so it has some lubrication at the beginning. You can clean the air escape valve easily but I think I get it clean without removing it. The little nut that tightens the handle is small and it seems like you have to unscrew it pretty far to get the handle off and sometimes I unscrew it too much and if it falls it is not going to be the easiest thing to find especially if it falls out when you are trying to clean it. I bought several just in case I loose this one.

Great stuff! I should've bought this a long time ago!

Let me begin with stating that this is the first stand alone sausage stuffer I've ever used. Years ago I started out grinding and stuffing sausages using a "Kitchen Aid" with the grinder/stuffer attachment. It worked but oh my, it was a lot of work. I finally wised up and bought heavy duty grinder I would use to grind the meat and then run it through a second time to stuff the sausage. It worked o.k. for stuffing but by double grinding, the meat ended up being ground to fine. The other downside was it required two people working together to correctly stuff the casings. My stuffing partner (wife) passed away a few years ago so I just starting making sausage patties instead of links.I finally wised up and started reading reviews on Amazon concerning stuffers in the price range I could afford. From the reviews I read concerning this stuffer it appeared the only downside was the fact it took a fair bit of cranking to remove plunger assembly so the hopper could be refilled. All in all, it seemed just about everyone loved this stuffer so I took the plunge and bought one. "I am now a HAPPY sausage stuffer!! This stuffer did indeed make stuffing sausage so much easier and I can operate by myself, hip, hip hooray!!The other reviewers did a fine job describing how this stuffer performs so I won't bother to repeat the raves here but I would like to add a couple thoughts. First, it is easy to clean this unit. When you're taking it apart to clean it, don't forget to remove the o-ring on the plunger in case any meat fragments got under the o-ring. It's easy enough to do. I just carfully used a butter knife to slip under and lift the o-ring out of it's groove. Just be careful so you don't damage toe ring. The second suggestion I have works great but the LEM folks will probably frown on this one. In place of the crank handle, I use a cordless, variable speed DeWalt drill motor coupled with a 6 point 3/8 drive 9/16" socket. I also adjust the drill motor so that it will slip (screwdriver setting) so it's impossible for me to crank to hard and damage anything. It's so easy to vary my stuffing speed with this set up and it only takes a few seconds to crank the plunger back out so I can refill the hopper.One other thing I did was before I ever used the stuffer, I removed the gear cover and I packed the gear housing full of food grade synthetic grease. Those metal gears will be around long after I'm dead and gone!! If the LEM folks want to void my warranty, I'm fine with that. As well as this thing is built and the material used to build it with, I don't see much chance of it coming apart.Sorry for such a long review. I seldom review items I buy but in this case, I decided to share my tidbits in case anyone is interested. Y'all have a GREAT day!!!

I've wanted to make my own meat snack sticks for a LONG time, and finally took the plunge. I got a stand mixer attachment, and that "worked" for me, but I wasn't pleased with the texture of my sticks or sausage. Finally I broke down and after many searches and reviews-read I got the LEM 1606 stuffer. The most influential reviews poised this as a great stuffer for the casual-hobbiest-occasional home user. Other brands I had on my list were also rated high (Amazon favorite), but I looked at 1 other thing seldom mentioned in reviews, the amount of meat left in the unit after running to the end of the press. The design of the LEM 1606 is such that there is no large elbow directing the meat to the sausage horn, it's more "inline" to choose a term.My first time using it I stuffed 4# of beef snack sticks without a single hitch. In the end the meat left in the hopper amounted to roughly a plam sized (thin) burger. I scooped that to the exit port, covered it with a hamburger bun half (a trick I'd read about somewhere), ran the compression plate back down, and stuffed the rest of the meat into casings. The only meat left was what was actually in the horn (about a breakfast sausage patty size) which quickly got fried up as my treat for all the time I'd spent making up the sticks. Other units I'd considered apparently leave about 1/4 pound in the elbow/horn parts.All in all I'm very pleased with the LEM 1606. The only thing I'd change would be to include a her wrench for the handle screw, or provide a thumb screw instead of the set screw.Stop looking, buy this one.