Customer Reviews

KitchenAid SSA Sausage Stuffer Kit Attachment for Food Grinder

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(44)

 

 

I started learning about sausage stuffing in order to make a good andouille for jambalaya, gumbo, etc. Most decent equipment out there will run anywhere from $[...]-$[...] for a decent stuffer. Double that total and you can get a grinder as well. If you're going to make consistently large batches (25 lbs or more at a time) then you're probably going to want to invest in those.

However, if you're just learning and starting out and already have a KitchenAid and the associated grinder, then the stuffing attachment for less than $10 is a no-brainer. I've used it a couple of times now and I can say that it makes high-quality sausage without a problem.

I have noted a couple of negative reviews for this product. Not knowing the specifics of how those people used the product, I can note some things I learned on my own, and from a site. That is an excellent site about andouille and sausage stuffing in general (especially with a KitchenAid).

1. When grinding, make sure the blade is in. I forgot to do this on my first batch and it turned the meat into paste and was impossible to get the grinder to work properly (which is why they include it).

2. Make sure you keep the meat very cold. I haven't had to cool the attachments, although that might help, especially when the meat isn't the coldest.

3. Use the coarse grind plate for sausage. You can the fine grind plate (for hot dogs for example), but I would recommend just using the coarse plate and running the meat through multiple times for a finer grind on your sausage. The grinder can get some tissue wrapped around the feeder and it could require some disassembly and cleaning (might take 3-5 minutes), especially with the fine grind plate. After the first grind, the mixture moves through the grinder pretty quickly anyway.

4. Make sure the screw cap is tight. Meat can escape through the cap if you're not careful. It shouldn't in most cases though. If it is, this is a sign something else is probably wrong.

5. I bought the KitchenAid FT Food Tray Attachment for Stand Mixers as well. It's fairly handy for larger batches and I recommend it, but it's not necessary. I ground 15 lbs the other night and it was helpful in holding the larger amounts.

6. You'll see this other places, but I'll reiterate that natural casings are worth the extra (minimal) effort. There's not much to it once you've used them. Collagen is ok and are less likely to break, but natural aren't as fragile as you might think and they look and taste way better. I was a little leery of natural and bought collagen initially, but haven't used them since my first batch. I don't think I'll go back if I don't have to.

I've stuffed andouille and Italian sausage both with the larger of the two stuffer attachments. If I make some breakfast sausage, I imagine the smaller one will come in handy. If you're like me and you've gotten to this point, next on your list will probably be a smoker. I haven't taken that plunge yet, but it's coming soon.

Good luck and happy stuffing!

Sausage making is an artform. It can be difficult to get the hang of, but with the right info you can make wonderful, fresh sausage and feel good about the ingredients inside. This sausage attachment works pretty well. The hopper is a little small, but unless you are making a ton at a time, it's not a deal breaker. It's important to keep the meat really cold throughout the process though or the fat will melt and could hurt your mixer engine. I picked up The Mixer Bible which has about 35 sausage recipes along with 300 other recipes for the mixer and it's other attachments. I really like the book and it walks you through the ins and outs of working with all the attachments.

Once you realize how it properly is assembled for stuffing, you realize how great a product it is. TAKE OUT THE BLADE AND GRINDING PLATE. If you don't remove these, it will seem impossible to stuff a full length casing. It took me an hour doing this. I dissembled, and removed the blade and plate, replacing it with the plastic spinner in the box, and once I did that, the auger did its job and started pulling the meat through, instead of the vicious plunger stuffing that was needed before.

Once this was done, I stuffed 10lbs in about 30 minutes (50 links). My recipe:

10 lbs pork shoulder
2 lbs bacon (unsliced)
2 lbs ultra-sharp cheddar (shredded)
2 tbs ground fennel
2 tbs ground corriander
2 tbs ginger
1 tbs ground mustard
1 tbs chili powder
2 tbs red flake pepper
1/4 cup water
sprinkling of salt

Use natural hog casings and your all set.

In combination with the food grinding attachment, this accessory for the Kitchen Aid mixer makes short work of any sausage making task you set before it. I've helped friends cook feasts for 200+ people with this attachment and everyone eating was stunned at the short amount of time it took us to make their fresh, homemade sausage.

This attachment beats a hand-crank grinder and extruder easily. And because it attaches to the mixer itself, I've found it far more stable and easy to access than the grinder-extruder combinations that mount to the countertop. With precious little in terms of countertop space, the mixer takes up more room, but the ease of use more than makes up for that. In combination with the food grinder, I can process an entire deer's worth of meat in an evening with this attachment.

Meat sausage isn't the only thing you can process with this fine attachment. Fruit sausages work equally well and the opening in the extruder is wide enough even for larger items. For the more creative among us, you can use the extruder to fill things like balloons and other awkward items much more easily than with a funnel and an extra pair of hands. You'd be surprised at exactly how many things you'll find you can use this attachment for.

The cleanup of this attachment is a breeze. Nothing sticks to the plastic and soapy hot water makes short work of a dishwashing task that would otherwise be onerous on the hand-crank machines. Better yet, throw it in the dishwasher. For the work I've put mine through, this attachment paid for itself based on ease of use alone before I was done with my first batch of sausage.

I purchased this kit along with the food grinder attachment so that I could make sausage without spending a ton on a separate stuffer. I'm now going to buy a separate stuffer. The kit worked, after a fashion, however...

Being a conversion kit to the grinder, it naturally is elevated about a foot or so above the counter. The means that you cannot allow the stuffed casings rest on the counter as you stuff. The weight pulls the casing off the horn.

Also, trying to feed the ground meat through the machine was messy and difficult. You had to feed meat in, add more meat periodically, control the feeding of the casing, hold the sausage as it filled and, since you're doing all this stuff at once, start and stop the machine periodically. It's nearing impossible and very frustrating for one person to do alone.

Also, depending on the consistency, much of the meat came back up the feeder neck as I pulled the plastic plunger out. This means re-feeding the meat 3 or 4 times before it actually gets through the machine. A /very/ slow process.

If you have a Kitchenaid mixer with the food grinder attachment, this sausage maker attachment is a neccesity! It is very easy to attach to the grinder. Get some casings from your supermarket butcher department, slip them onto the sausage tube, put the meat mixture in the grinder and turn it on. Sausage comes out of the tube with ease. It never sticks. Just slide the casings off as the meat extrudes. Twist the casing to size the sausages. There is nothing easier. Beats a hand grinder sausage extruder. Get this!

Love the food grinder, hate the new 1-piece stomper tool. You have to call the manufacturer to get a free wood stomper mailed to you which works better. They have gotten a lot of complaints. The plastic stomper is hard to use with the big end, plus, it sucks liquid back out of the grinder, causing the food to be dry.

The sausage stuffer kit is great, it works just fine. There isn't much to it; a few pieces of plastic that probably cost less to produce than the printed box that they came in!

This is such a minor item that KitchenAid should be ashamed of itself for selling it separately. This item should be included with the Food Grinder. Shame on you KitchenAid!

I wouldn't say this is the fastest extruder around, but then I do 20-30 lbs of sausage at a time (for smoking). I would much rather own a professional-grade extruder, but those cost anywhere from $...and that's just startin' out. This attachment is well worth the few bucks if you've got the meat grinder already. In the services these inexpensive attachments have provided me, my Kitchen Aid mixer has paid for itself over and over and over again.

Like the title says, I'm giving this product a one star rating because there's nothing lower. I bought this along with the KA mixer for myself for Christmas.

Like one reviewer stated, this thing fails horribly on three points:

The plunger has no seal, so the ground forcemeat just pushes back out instead of going down to the worm gear.
The worm gear doesn't seal either, so the plunger lets air into the chamber and the worm gear pushes it into the casing, creating air pockets in your sausage.
The stuffer is too high above the worksurface. I wound up putting mine in a kitchen chair beside the counter and using textbooks to raise it to the right level.

If you plan on making even moderate amounts of sausage, just do the smart thing and get a sausage stuffer. There is a very sturdy, highly recommended 5# model on the web, just search for stuffers and look in the $80 price range.

There's not one thing about this product that I can compliment, except maybe that it's cheap enough that I don't feel like I blew a lot of money on a piece of garbage.