Homemade Sausage Making

While reading the reviews when I bought my meat mixer a few folks said the main drawback was having to have someone hold the mixer in place while another person turned the handle. My solution was to cut a coupe of 1x4's 24" long, make a couple of notches around the leg grommets so the edge of the 1x4 fit tight up against the side of the mixer, and fasten things down to a wooden table with sheetrock screws. The end result makes the mixer very secure, there's no clamp rods or pipes to threaten yoiur knuckles, goes together and comes apart in seconds. I'm sure there's plenty of other ways to accomplish the same goal, this is what works for me. RAY

Looks good Ray. I'm going to install a motor on mine.

Gulyás wrote: install a motor on mine.

Gulyás, when done, would like to see photos and details please !

Regards. Gus

Stabilizing Meat Mixer

That is a no nonsense solution to a problem, good work mate !

Hi Gus.

I have some things sitting around idle what I can use to drive the meat mixer. One is an electric motor with gear box, like this one. http://www.automationdirect.com/adc/Ove ... MgoduT4Anw

I also have drill with dial speed control.
http://www.toolup.com/milwaukee_4210-1_ ... MgoduT4Anw

Motors can be adjusted electronically too.
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/speed- ... ucer&xi=xi

The idea is from LEM meat grinder, If you have the ones, you can just connect the 2..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-UNIWORLD-ME ... 0874184439

Gulyás wrote:Looks good Ray. I'm going to install a motor on mine.

I have the 20lb mixer and it does 22-25 pounds without killing me, that's about max'ed out for it's capacity. If I had the 50 pound model I'd have to have some power other than my wore-out biceps. My research showed me that the 50lb models weren't exactly ideal for smaller loads, say 10lbs and under, guys didn't seem happy. There were also a lot of alignment and gear wear-out issues with a motor, but I imagine you've got that covered. By the time I've done a 22-23 lb batch you could stick a fork in me anyway, I'm done. RAY

A small motor and a very large "V" pulley on the mixer and a very small one on the motor with a belt long enough to allow the motor to sit on the floor would allow rather sloppy alignments and still work. A man is only good for about a tenth horse power so the motor doesn't need to be very large. Mounting the motor on a 2x12 about 3 feet long would allow sandbagging it to hold it down. The advantage of sand bags is you can make them any size that suits your back.
Ray that right hand of yours is an example of repetitive motion injury. Have you had physical therapy work prescribed?

Yes sir.

I wanted to mention that too, but first I wanted to make a sketch for adjustable motor base.
I'll make mine on a "V"-shaped base, because I have 2 mixer, 1 17 lb., and 1 44 lb.
With V belts, it does not matter a shaft height.

Some table saws, and other machines have motor bases on hinges too, (just for ideas), where the own weight of the motor is used for tension.

And here is another idea for slowing down motor speed.

http://www.sausagemania.com/grinder.html

In the detail of the linked power system the "speed brake" they refer to is properly called either a jackshaft or a countershaft. It this particular case the drive arrangement is a simple double reduction with a countershaft. The featured set up is a dedicated unit where it is entirely feasible to equip several devises with drive pulleys and have a movable power drive. I should think cleaning the system in the linked pictures would be difficult.

Hi,
We have a supplier here in Australia that sells a meat mixer that can be coupled directly to a mincer he sells. It was on YouTube. All very neat.
Luckily my hands still do the job very well. For how long, who knows????
I do own a 5 kg meat mixer as well but my batches are still small.
Regards,
Jan.

For small batches it doesn't pay/wort to make/invest in any serious device. I just put on gloves, and zip-zip, done.
But for large ones it's a big help, specially when it's very cold.
And yes LEM has grinder plus mixer, that can be connected the way they are made. But we already have our equipment, unless somebody is just starting the sausage making, or updating.
Holding down the mixer is still a very good idea, so is everything else that better not moving.

Nice work with the stabilization.

I grew to hate my meat mixers, too much of a pain with clean-up and all.
A meat lug and some nitrile gloves works best for me, much better 'feel' for what's going on.

On the cars, the "beater" I have is a Ford Escort with 260,000 miles on it, I paid $600 when it had 140,000 miles.
It doesn't owe me a thing. I do all the repairs, so far the only major repair has been the trans-axle ($200), that was at 150,000 miles, because the prior owner had the clutch replaced and the idiot who replaced the clutch damaged seals which led to leakage of transmission oil.

Great idea for using a power source but I would be putting some type of cage on the top. I can see an arm or at the least some fingers going into the mix.