Charcuterie Wanna-be

There's between a month and six weeks left before the 2014 butchering event, so I have begun thinking about how to prepare.  This year, I'd like to give myself a few more options about handling the sausage making component of the enterprise.

Now, before I get much further into this post, I want to make a note about the accompanying photo - it was sent to me by a friend who was telling me about a butchering event down in Shenandoah, where they did 12 hogs over the course of a week.  Probably some venison in the mix as well.

The butchering shed that David hires out for our event can pretty much do all of this, although we will ship stuff out to a smokehouse when we want to use that approach.  Here's a post about the sausage making we did last year:  http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2013/02/everything-but-oink.html

Now the point of this post is that I am in search of sausage making gear and tips.  I'd heard that there is an attachment we can hook up to Mary's KitchenAid stand mixer - I even watched an excellent how-to video that showed pork, lamb, and chicken variations made with this tool.  However, when I went to Amazon to check it out, at least a third of the reviews are thumbs down - more than 100 poor reviews! - so I am going to keep looking.

My alternative may be to simply grind the pork at the butchering shed.  I'll go ahead and make and package the breakfast sausage there, since the recipe is so simple and we form the patties right when we're ready to cook it.  But I want to experiment further with some link-style sausages this year, thus the research.

Suggestions are welcome!