Do your own meat processing?

[Grant H.]

I am beginning my setup for meat processing of wild game and would like some advice as to what a good setup will be. I am planning on doing this for a long time and I generally get a couple animals a year plus a lot of waterfowl I’d like to turn into sausage or other products.

i have a vacuum sealer already

we have a nice kitchen aid mixer I can use for mixing spices into the meat

i want a nice electric grinder, I question if I need one with a foot control pedal?
what horsepower do you recommend?

I am also thinking a sausage stuffer would be easier to use then putting the attachments on the grinder?

anything else including recipes for polish dogs, jalapeño cheddar dogs, Italian and breakfast sausage, pepperoni snack sticks.
we really like all the stuff from steves meats and from Hudson meat lockers if that helps with the taste flavors we like. But I just don’t want to justify several hundred dollars each time for processing

Having done 3 1700+lb steers in the last three years, from killing them to freezer, I will add my comments.

Foot pedal for grinder? Yes. Well worth it. You can go buy one of the foot pedals from HF for cheap, and it makes it well worth it.

We use a Cabelas 1.75HP grinder (looks different than the ones they sell now) but it does well. We double grind the beef, and it doesn't care either time. Typically, when grinding during processing a steer, we double grind batches of 75-100lbs and it doesn't ever seem to get overly warm or struggle.

For doing a LOT of sausage, I would say get a stuffer. The grinder attachments work (we've done this with the deer that my hunting group has brought home), but a real stuffer is faster and more consistent.