Dakotah Dakotah 9LB/4L Sausage Stuffer Meat Filler Duel Speed Horizontal Commercial Sausage Maker by Dakotah Stuffer

I do like making different kinds of sausage. I have a kitchenaid grinder w/ sausage stuffer. The sausage stuffer extreamly frustrating and loads of effort and time. This Dakota sausage stuffer is awesome. Effortless extrusion of meats. Faster than u can keep up or easily regulate the speed and stop it with simple 1/4 turn on the valve. Made 4 lbs sausage in just a couple mins. I just say it the way it is.

I just threw my Dakota Water-Stuffer in the trash after several years of struggling with it. I bought it for the cleaver design and relatively low price.First, it is difficult to load. You lube the cylinder with cooking oil and force the piston all the way in. You will need a big wooden stick for the task or you tear the skin off your knuckles on the sharp plastic cylinder edge (I learned the hard way). Then you have to hand stuff balls of sausage meat in all the way up to your elbow in the narrow cylinder and pack it in or you get air in your sausages.The plastic water line fittings supplied, failed after a few uses so off to the hardware store for brass ball-valves and fittings ($40). Then the back cap end cracked around the water inlet/outlet fittings so I machined metal plates to reinforce the weak design feature (I am a machinist so did it myself.) The plastic screw-on parts always get stuck so plan on vice-grip marks on the parts after taking it apart. When it comes time to reload it. you let the water pressure run the piston all the way out, re-lube the cylinder and repeat. You can not simply press the piston back down with the cylinder full of water and the valve open. Silly design.Today, with 25lbs of snack sticks to make, I loaded it up, opened the valve and the stuffing tube end of the cylinder exploded at the threads, under pressure, spewing water all over. I rigged it back together with epoxy and duct tape just to finish the task. Then the flimsy plastic stuffer tube broke off. ENOUGH! Straight to the trash can!Summary: I produced a couple hundred lbs of sausages over the last few years with this unit, but if you are not handy at fixing cheap, flimsy, plastic things, you will be better off spending the extra money up front to purchase a heavy-duty stainless steel sausage stuffer.

This thing works awesome. A little bit of a pain to hook up all the water hoses inside and cleaning is hard, getting the meat to the bottom of the tube is impossible without putting your arm inside, which is gross so i would recomment long gloves or something maybe? I ended up just filling it half way each time but still great product.

They claim that it comes with a 3/8 stuffing tube when it truly does not. I am sitting here with 50 lb of meat and 17 mm casings and no tube to stuff them with. The smallest tubing kit is a 5/8. I will be returning this and do not recommend this if you are trying to do snack sticks the size of Slim Jims. They don't even offer a tube for this machine that will do that size sticks.

This takes two people. Small casings don't fit well.

I wasn't expecting this!Bummed right out, 30 pounds of pepperoni sticks., and of course I didn't have high temp cheese this time so i used reg mozzarella.Plan B was brought to barePepperoni logsMinus the cheese, it meltedBroke from over use?Thinking a metal collar would better for the attachmentsAnd I'll be getting anew Dakota stuffer

If your planning to do slim jims or stuff thru the small funnel forget it. Mine blows the top off the stuffer trying to push meat thru the small funnel. This was very frustrating trying to get thru 100lbs of meat with a stuffer that blew the top off at least once per fill. I even water the meat down and it will still blow it off. Seems to stuff larger things like brats or hotdogs just fine. Small things not so well.

Easy to assemble, easy to operate, end result was fabulous. It took me about 3 feet of casing to co-ordinate my hands, but, after that you would think I made sausage for a living. (This was my first effort). The Stuffer is well worth the money and definitely 5 star.