If you're making a large amount of sausage, whether for commercial purposes or for personal use, buying an industrial sausage linker is a smart move. You can stuff your casings and make links in a fraction of the time it takes to do so with a smaller, manual sausage linker. There is, however, a bit of a learning curve. Part of this is just learning the "feel" of using the linker. But there are also a few tips you can follow your first time around to ensure a more successful experience.

Soak your casings in water first.

An industrial sausage linker is a lot stronger than a manual sausage filler, and it may be capable of stretching the casings without them first being soaked. However, filling the casings without first soaking them does increase your risk of tears, and dealing with torn casings will slow down your sausage-stuffing process considerably. So always soak your casings in warm water for about an hour before you start linking your sausages. The machine will work faster, and you should not get any tears.

Roll the sausages between your hands to twist between links.

Even though the linker will stuff the sausage casings for you, it will still be up to you to twist off the sausages between the links. It can be difficult, at first, to do this fast enough to keep up with the machine. An easy way to speed up the twisting process is to roll the sausages. Have one hand above the sausage and the other hand above the sausage. Roll it around twice in the same direction, release, and move on to the next link.

Have a helper cut the sausage strand every few links.

The linker will keep going and going until the hopper is empty and all of the meat mixture has been used up. This can mean quite a lot of sausages, which means your strand of sausages is going to get heavy and cumbersome. Make sure you have a helper around who can cut the strand every 4 or 6 links. They can drop the links in a big pan or bucket, and you can separate the rest of them later when you're done stuffing the sausages.

Using an industrial sausage linker is definitely the most efficient way to make a large quantity of sausage. If you remember to soak your casings, roll the links to twist them, and have someone cut the strand every few links, you'll soon get the hang of this.

To learn more, contact a resource that supplies industrial sausage linkers.