Hakka 11 Lb/5 L Sausage Stuffer 2 Speed Stainless Steel Vertical Sausage Maker

I was looking at the 7 pound/3 liter unit and jumped up to this one for the incremental $20 and am very glad I did. At the same time, this is about as big as I'd want to have for my home kitchen use.Functions great. For a first use, I stuffed breakfast sausage that I had let gel for a few days in the cooler into sheep casings. I have found to be a good test of a unit. There was plenty of leverage to force the meat through the 10mm tube with very even pressure. Tubes are about 8 inches which is plenty long to hold casings, without being so long to create more friction on the force meat. I was able to load the barrel without air and all air left the air bled valve - I had not bubbles in my casing. Uniform speed on the lever resulted in uniform speed out of the tube. At the bottom of the barrel, the elbow that leads into the tube is nice and large to allow easy cleanup.The unit cleaned up pretty easily. The air valve and the silicon gasket come off with ease and are easy to clean and put back on. One upgrade I will do it to replace the philips head machine screw on the air valve with small knob so that it really requires no tools to clean and adjust. Looking at the gasket, it is pretty robust and would have to be abused to wear out.The stainless steel looks to be of high grade and maybe more importantly, the whole unit seems to be of the same grade. All the metal work is very good for a unit in this price range. No sharp edges, very clean welds and very even brushed or polished finishing. The worst condition on the whole piece was a small burr on the air valve threads, which is trivial.Shipped fast in good carton, which is well cushioned with Styrofoam. One thing I would have preferred is a heavy paper pulp package cushion for storing in the original packaging. I think that would last longer than the styrofoam, which comes apart a bit with each use and is, of course, nasty to dispose of.Would highly recommend this unit for any kitchen.

Has a large capacity very easy to use and the two speed crank makes it very easy to turn and also it has a valve to let air escape.I used it to stuff, Deer snack sticks and my grandson has one and we stuffed Deer summer sausage. They’re great machines makes a job very simple.

We've made sausage in the past with our KitchenAid mixed. It works, but it's not ideal. The mixed is tall, so we've put a plate on top of a bowl so the sausage won't hang to much. Worst yet the mix tray is so small that you are constantly adding more sausage mix and you have to keep it packed so you don't get air. Like I said, it works, ,but it's also kind of a pain. Any one who has stuffed sausage with a KitchenAid will know exactly what i am talking about.Fast forward to this stuffer. OMG. It's like night and day for making sausage. First I put all 10 pounds in the tube at once. Load and done. No constantly adding. Feed the casing on the tube (when it's wet it's easier), crank and you are making sausage. Couldn't be much easier.Being able to load 10 pounds at once has huge advantages. Once with the KitchenAid I made potato sausage which tends to be sticky in the first place, then you end up taking WAY more time to feed it in the mixer, it gets warm and oh what a mess. I ended up only stuffing like half of it.With the Hakka stuffer, our first try, we made 10 pounds of chicken/cherry/blue cheese sausage and it couldn't be much easier. We were a little rusty, so getting back into the hang of working with the casings took a bit, but it didn't take long to get in a rhythm and it couldn't have worked better.The 11 pound unit is HUGE. I knew it was going to be big, but it did surprise me. But we can do a little or a lot. Since we often make 10 pounds at a time, it's the perfect size. Once we use it a few times, i am sure we will be turning out sausage quickly and easily.Also like that it comes with so many different funnels. You can make just about any kind or size with this one.This unit is heavy duty and well built. For the most part it is real easy to clean. It comes apart really easy and simply wash it off. The ONLY sightly negative I have is that I don't see any way to remove the plunger part so you can clean it. I ended up straddling the unit over the sink to wash that part. Not a deal breaker and not worth taking a star off. Maybe some one can tell me how that pat can be remove, if it can.There was not much to putting this together, not many parts. The instructions were not much, they could be improved.One important tip, while you are stuffing, be careful if you let go of the crank handle, it almost got me in the face a couple times. Just FYI.I am very happy with this purchase, would purchase again without hesitation. Though I doubt I'll need to replace this unit in my life time.If you make a fair amount of sausage and do it with something like a KitchenAid mixer, do yourself a BIG favor and get this. You will so glad you did.