Sausage Making - Grind twice or just one time?

[wytex]

Put you grinder out somewhere where it can get really cold overnight before you grind.
We always pick a cold day but not frigid and grind in our garage. Everything stays cold that way. Our grinder neck usually has frost on it while we are grinding.
After you stuff those casings lets that sausage sit overnight before you smoke or cook it, they need to be dry to the touch also before you smoke them .
We have a mixer but cleanup is a pain so hands are our mixer now.

 

[Dave N]

My deer salami, I like it best with one coarse grind. Just now made a batch of breakfast sausage and ground twice, coarse then fine. Comes out just like burger from the grocery store.

Bambi, I recommend a mixer if you are still thinking about it. I have a hand crank model that holds maybe 25 pounds of meat? It's a breeze to get things mixed up without making a mess.

I also went with a stuffer instead of using my grinder. It worked, but the smaller casings were just too tough to get the meat pushed through. Stuffers are worth the money.

 

[Addicting]

Like most have said I freeze mine in between. However I use parchment paper on 1” sided cookie sheets rolled flat and then scored with a knife at 1” wide. After it’s froze you will end up with a sheet you can break apart into 1” x1” strips to run back thru. No need for a plunger and the bigger grinders take it like a champ. I’ve broke 2 small ones doing this so I don’t recommend trying it with anything on the small size.

 

[el unit]

I've always ground once through the medium plate and mix by hand very thoroughly for brats, links, summer sausage, and snack sticks. The texture and seasonings seem to be great and have not noticed any difference in texture from Johnsonville Brats or Slim Jim's (except mine are a little more moist than Slim Jim's).
Weston 1hp grinder and the stuffing attachment seem to work great and I try and keep the meat and attachments as cold as possible thru the process. Usually 10-15 lb. batches at a time for me.