I have had the 9 pound Dakotah water stuffer for several months and have ran over 1,000 pounds of meat through it. Most of the stuffing was snack sticks however a good amount was summer sausage and there was some hog casings filled. I thought that I would share some of the things that I like and some things that I thought needed improvements on. I really like the size of the stuffer and the ease of storing the body. All of the parts can be inserted into the body and it stores very nicely on a shelf. It is very easy to hook up and use and cleaning is a breeze. I like the see through body vs a solid piece of PVC body as I can see how much meat is in the body and can adjust how much casings will be needed to finish a load. My sausage stuffing has been regulated to the screened in back porch as I do not want to take a chance of breaking a hose or springing a water leak and having to deal with what my bride would say or do!
There were 2 horns that came with the stuffer. After using the small snack stick horn I had some issues because the ID of the horn was just too small. I could not stuff too fast as the meat would just not want flow very good. So I made a bit of an adapter so I could use the 5 pound LEM stuffing horn on the Dakotah. Using the stainless steel LEM horn solved all the problems that I had using the snack stick horn that came with the Dakotah. It will shoot a full tube faster than one man can control the sausage coming out and I can stuff a load in under 5 minutes.
Showing the difference in the ID of the LEM stainless steel horn and the Dakotah horn
The flare or bell on the 2 horns are very different and the LEM horn allows for a better flow and will not stop up like the Dakotah horn.
The LEM horn and retaining ring will not fit the Dakotah stuffer so a way to make an adapter needed to be found.
Found this fitting at Home Depot and the inside threads fit perfect to the Dakotah cap. The outside threads are a bit different than the pipe threads the come with a 5 pound vertical stuffer but it will take about 2 threads when screwed on so it works with a bit of some modifications.
Took some gasket rubber and made 2 gaskets that fit inside the retaining ring. This takes up the slop of the horn as the adapter would not screw down tight on the retaining ring.
Gaskets in place waiting for the horn to be inserted.
Horn inserted and the gasket material took up the excess threads so the adapter will screw on snug.
Adapter is screwed down snug to the flare of the horn and will not allow any meat to escape around the retaining ring. Using this adapter will allow one to use any of the 5 pound stuffing tubes that come with the 5 pound vertical stuffers.
Showing that the adapter fits nicely onto the Dakotah cap and make a nice solid piece for stuffing snack sticks.
Showing a view from the inside of the cap which shows how the adapter fits and allows for a bigger ID for the stuffing horn.
This modification really improved the performance of the stuffer and makes stuffing snack stick a breeze. The stuffer will shoot out a 1/2 sleave of 19 mm casing faster than you can control it so you have to throttle the stuffer way down. It sure beats hand cranking a vertical stuffer!
Another drawback that I see with the stuffer is the excess meat that is left in the end cap after stuffing. This meat would have to be hand feed thru the stuffer horn to complete the stuffing. This was very time consuming considering I would be doing up to 4 different orders at a time and hand feeding all of the excess of each order added extra time before I could get all of the orders in the smoker. A simple solution was found and it works fantastic!
I took an old food grade plastic cutting board and used my 4 inch hole saw to cut out two disks. The thickness of the 2 disks fit inside the end cap nicely and reduces the amount of excess meat that would be inside the end cap. I took a smaller hole saw and drilled the middle out of the disks so the meat could flow into the stuffing horn.
The size of the middle hole is somewhat larger than the throat of the end cap but that was the smallest hole saw that I had. I think it helps to start the meat flow going into the end cap and into the stuffing horn anyway.
Hopefully one can see that the amount of excess meat is now just a small layer on the disks and not the wad of meat that would have been inside the head.
This is the amount of meat that was scraped off the disk inserts and it is a heck of a lot less than what is left over using a 5 pound vertical stuffer.
In conclusion, I would say that for a few dollars anyone can make modifications to the Dakotah stuffer and their stuffing experience should be greatly enhanced. If one were only doing a 5 to 10 pound load every once in a while the modification may not be needed but if one is stuffing 30 to 100 pound loads the modifications will make ones life so much easier.
