# Meat Grinder



## tuffluckdriller (May 27, 2009)

What should I be looking for in a meat grinder? 
Horse Power = ?
Watts?
Brand?
Which plates to make sure I have?
etc?

Thanks


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## Gumbo (Sep 22, 2007)

How much meat are you planning on grinding at once? I just use the attachment on my Kitchen-Aid, and it works fine for my needs. But I don't do too much at once.

Goob grinds a lot for sausage, I'm curious what he uses and how much he grinds per session.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Yeah Tuffluck, how much do you want to grind? just burger or salami too?

Here's a story about my old home-made grinder:
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=22852&p=249813&hilit=grinder#p249813

I average about 300lbs of meat a year. I think we did closer to 450lbs in 2010, lots of elk, beef and pork. I like 60lb batches, that's what my equipment is set up for. I also have 3 smaller grinders I use from time to time.

Cabela's and LEM have good grinders. Growing up we ground it all by hand.


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## Treehugnhuntr (Sep 7, 2007)

I have a Cabela's model #22- 1 horse, 750w. We also have one at work and we've ground 400 lbs. in a night without a hiccup. It's on the upper end of the power spectrum, but I'd rather have too much power and capacity than not enough.

We used to have a 1/2 horse unit from Cabela's and it would shut down every now and then, but again, we were doing several hundred pounds of grind consecutively.

Goob has always been an inspiration while I am grinding. Every time I break the equipment out I recall the old photo(s) of him with sausages and the like draped over his counters.

The Cabela's grinder comes with all of the casing attachment and 2 different grind plates. I seldom use the one with the smaller holes.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

#22 is a great size and Cabela's has a good one, metal gears and made by LEM....I think.

A #10 is good for most households.

I have 1/8", 3/16", 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", a rare 7/16", 1/2", 3/4", and kidney plates. Each one has it's place in my kitchen.

My big grinder is a #32. It is home made and doesn't have the small feed chute, a safety feature. So my #32 will grind as fast as a #42 commercial grinder. Boy, you want to stay focused when using it. My son-in-law and brother have 32s and I help them grind game meat.


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## tuffluckdriller (May 27, 2009)

Sorry I've been slow responding...

I would really like to make the salami/summer sausage. 
I'd like to figure out how do make burger well, too. Is burger easy?

I'm guessing we'd do about 200 lbs. per season. Maybe more, depending on success...


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## Treehugnhuntr (Sep 7, 2007)

All of the things you mentioned are fairly easy. You can start out with commercial seasoning mixes, or go for the gusto and make your own blends. There are a few basic things that you will need when mixing your own, such as the different curing agents, but mixing in this and that, even in addition to commercial seasonings is very fun.

Making brats, snack stix, summer sausages, salami etc. etc. is all pretty easy, it just takes jumping in and doing it. Burger is very easy and really, all of the other options, such as salami etc. are just burger with added ingredients.

****, I think I know what I'm doing this weekend. 

Goob, do you use a mixer?


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

When I mix after grinding, I throw it in my wife's kitchen aid mixer let it spin away. Granted, I'm not doing a hundred pounds of burger at a time. Most I've done in one sitting is about 40 pounds, so I throw it in the mixer in 3 pound batches when I make jerkey and want to mix in the seasoning. All my game burger I use for jerkey, so I don't mix any beef fat in it or anything like that. 

I got a new Cabela's grinder for Christmas I still haven't used. Maybe I'll hit the discounted meat shelf at Smiths and find a roast or something I can grind up. I've got a hankerin' now for some homemade jerkey. And the freezer is empty of venison and elk. How soon until the application period?


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Treehugnhuntr said:


> .........................
> 
> Goob, do you use a mixer?


No, they slow me down and warm the meat up too much. For big batches of sausage, say over 50 pounds, I hand mix with one of those minature canoe paddles....like the ones used for small rubber rafts.

If I do 60 to 100 pound batches I grind thru a big plate or cut meat into cubes. Then add spice mixture, cheese, jalapeno bits, large-round fat, etc, etc, and then grind thru the size plate I want for the finished product. Sometimes I grind and stuff at the same time, sometimes I grind and then put the meat in a stuffer. All depends. My recipes posted on this Forum spell out which way I do it.

If I was just starting out I would make sausage in a loaf pan or just roll it out by hand; no casings. Casings are complicated.

Some sausages I make have two different sizes of product in them. Maybe the fat is ground at 1/2" and the red meat ground to 3/16", and then everything is mixed by hand, and then stuffed into casings in a stuffer.

I buy beef chubs for my wild game burger. I get the 70-30 (red meat to fat) mix in a 40lb box. It's coarse ground, about 1/2". I grind the game through a kidney plate then mix in the beef. 60 lbs of game and 40 lbs of the fatty beef (it's closer to 50-50 than 70-30) When I'm all done the burger is somewhere between 7% and 10% fat, just enough to make it stick together.

Also it's important to keep the meat frosty while grinding or stuffing.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

This grinder has good reviews and $100 bucks seems reasonable:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/ ... 6989_36989


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## tuffluckdriller (May 27, 2009)

I'm wondering, too, how old is too old for meat to be turned into good salami?


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

tuffluckdriller said:


> I'm wondering, too, how old is too old for meat to be turned into good salami?


There's no real answer to that. It's dependent on how the animal died, level of sanitary meat cutting methods, freezer temperature, type and amount of freezer wrap, and the amount of oxygen inside the packaging while frozen.

Max for me:
Boneless meat wrapped tightly with Saran wrap and then wrapped with freezer paper - 18 months at 0°F.

Boneless meat cut or ground into small chunks in vacuum bags - 36 months at 0°F.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

This past winter, I pulled some venison from the freezer that had been there since November 2007. When I processed it, I trimmed all fat, silver skin, and totally de-boned it, then stored it in gallon-sized zip lock freezer bags. It has been on the bottom of my chest freezer since then, marked "meat to be ground." I thawed it, mostly, and then ground it and made it all into jerky and it was just fine.


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

Just chattin' with Goob some more on this one.

I figure that guys have cut steaks off of mammoths they've found in glaciers and eaten them. So in a deep freez situation, I guess meat can keep a good while. 

With that, I figured if anyone on here had tried mammoth, it would have been Goob. He's saying no. So anyone else ever tried it? Al? Dale? .45? Zimmer?


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## tuffluckdriller (May 27, 2009)

haha


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