A device that pushes seasoned ground meat into sausage casings. A casing is slid onto a horn or tube, the filling goes into the cylinder, and a piston driven by a crank or lever forces it through the tube in a steady stream while the cook feeds the casing off. A dedicated stuffer handles 3 to 7 litres of filling; the stuffing tube attachment on a meat grinder does the same job for small batches but warms and smears the fat as the screw turns.
The filling should be very cold and stuffed firmly but not tight, and the casing is pricked where air bubbles show before the links are twisted off. Collagen and natural hog or sheep casings each have their own horn size.