[The Professor]

Tom,
Tip for the kitchenaid... freeze your meatgrinder and pull it out right before you ready to use... that info is usually in all the books but I found out the hard way that the kitchenaid heats up pretty quickly.

a definite +1 on that tip.   
Between freezing the grinder unit for a while and half-freezing the meat, you will get a perfect grind every time. 
My KitchenAid is going on its 25th year and still going strong.  I recently purchase two more third party manufactured grinding plates for mine...  12.5mm and a 10mm plates for extra coarse grind...a must when making Hungarian Kolbasz,  Polish Keilbasa, Andouille, and a few other types that call for the coarser grind.
For some sausages, I have also used a food processor to make true chopped meat  (which I prefer for burgers and meat based pasta sauces).

[robertpreed]

I have been making sausage for about fifteen years and I can offer a little advice....  From experience I can tell you the Kitchen Aid attachment will work if you want to make a pound of brats. But if you want to make more than a pound at a time invest in a sausage press. I bought one after fighting the Kitchen aid and it is money well spent.....

Okay, this thread has gotten me very hungry..........and interested in making sausage.

I have a Kitchen Aid and an unused grinding attachment, so probably time to put it to use.   The online reviews of the KA sausage stuffer have been mixed to say the least and the sausage press sounds like a good ($140 or so) idea. 

I'll probably do a batch or two not in casing to ensure that this is the hobby for me.    I bet the sausage would taste good with a homebrew.

[euge]

I think you are right!

[tschmidlin]

I've only done loose sausage so far and haven't used the stuffer attachment (haven't gotten one yet either), but I think I'll try the cheap one before springing for an expensive sausage press.  From the sounds of some of the reviews, the reason it doesn't work for some people is that they're doing it wrong.  I'm hoping if I read the instructions I'll have better luck.

Has anyone here used the KA sausage stuffer attachment?

[bluesman]

The KA meat grinder attachment is next on the list of kitchen gadgets to buy. I was hoping to have it by now but other things (purchases) got in the way Hopefully...sooner than later. You may want to consider some fresh Kielbasa...it tastes fantastic smoked. 

[bluesman]

Here's a high profile place to learn more about the art and craft of sausage making. 

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/

[robertpreed]

Thanks for the forum link.....info overload!

Rusk?   Do people actually add that to their sausage?   Is that just crushed rusk crackers?

[bluesman]

Or here's a good looking Italian Sausage recipe...

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=8010

scroll down a bit...

[bo]

I can't remember the last time I used Italian sausage in link form. I almost always cut it out of the casings for spaghetti sauce, pizza, etc. I might give that recipe a try and just keep it in premeasured chunks in the freezer.

[robertpreed]

Yeah, that recipe looks like a cross between sweet and hot.    That's probably a winner!

[euge]

Amazing. But 15 pounds? That's a lot of sausage- hopefully a lot of people are eating it!

[corkybstewart]

Amazing. But 15 pounds? That's a lot of sausage- hopefully a lot of people are eating it!

Because of the mess and the amount of cleaning involved 15 pounds is a minimum for me.  We did about 60 pounds of sausage one night in September for our Oktoberfest.

[bo]

Amazing. But 15 pounds? That's a lot of sausage- hopefully a lot of people are eating it!

I was looking at the 1 pound recipe toward the end of the page. I can scale that up a little.

[MDixon]

Has anyone here used the KA sausage stuffer attachment?

The KA attachment is kinda a PITA to use, you have to hold the casing in one hand and apply pressure with the other. 10lbs of sausage is a bit of a chore that way.

Skip the KA attachment and get a Grizzly http://www.grizzly.com/products/H6252

I think I got mine off ebay for a few bucks less and still directly from Grizzly.

It's the difference between taking hour(s) to fill casings as opposed to minutes.

[The Professor]

Has anyone here used the KA sausage stuffer attachment?

The KA attachment is kinda a PITA to use, you have to hold the casing in one hand and apply pressure with the other. 10lbs of sausage is a bit of a chore that way.
Skip the KA attachment and get a Grizzly http://www.grizzly.com/products/H6252
I think I got mine off ebay for a few bucks less and still directly from Grizzly.
It's the difference between taking hour(s) to fill casings as opposed to minutes.

I won't disagree that the Grizzly (or similar) vertical stuffer is easy to use, and wicked fast once you get the process down...but I can't begin to imagine why stuffing 10 lbs of sausage using the KA mixer attachment should take "hours" .   
I make sausage on a fairly regular basis  primarily using a KA setup, and once all the other preps are done and the casing is threaded onto the tube, 10 lbs usually takes no more than 10 or 15 minutes to go through (I never actually timed it, but it's probably closer to 10 min.). 

I would only tag the KA attachment with one caveat:  if you routinely want to make sausages that use extremely finely ground or nearly emusified meat (such as hot dogs, knockwurst, and the like) the KA is not an ideal tool for that (it can be done, but not with the speed and ease of making kolbasz/kielbasa or Italian type sausages.

If one already has a KA mixer, the sausage kit can be had on eBay for dirt cheap and it's a great way to try out sausage making.  For 5 or 10 lb batches (typically what I make), it's a pretty much hassle free and easy cleanup operation (aside from the exception noted above).