Meat grinder size

[harvey lee]

I have always had someone else grind my venison burger.

I typically grind about 75 pounds of burger and was wondering if I purchase a 1/2hp grinder if that would be large enough in power to grind the burger.

Thanks for any help on this.

[Cheetah]

Should be fine, worst case you may need to feed the meat in slower if it isn't going fast enough.

[jnorm1984]

Plenty of power.. I have a .2 hp and it works great. I typically only do about 30 lbs though.

[bloc004]

Plenty of power. I have a .5 hp grinder and have no issues at all. Like Cheetah said, just have to feed a little bit slower than some larger models.

[lakeshoremunster]

It should work out for you, just force too much in it at one time and take it slow, if the motor gets too hot let it cool down some. Dont want your motor to burn up on you.

[tunrevir]

1/2 horse should be just fine. I was given a home grinder like you see in the big C catalog on sale for around 79 bucks which does a decent job but is a bit slow and can get bogged down a bit with heavy grinding. I used a friends 1/2 horse big C grinder the commercial grade one and that thing roared through the trimmings as fast as we could stuff them in. This nice thing about the commercial grade grinder is it tends to be heavy duty and should last through many years of grinding and never need replacement. I'm going on 5 years with my little grinder and it still works well but just slows the process down a bit.

Tunrevir~

[lakeshoremunster]

I do notice that the smaller I cut up my chunks of meat the better and faster it will grind it.

[harvey lee]

I guess I am wondering if I should maybe go with a 1hp as I could put through larger pieces and maybe it would go faster with no issues at all.

I didn't want to spend $300-$400 on a grinder but I do not want to say gee, I should have went with a larger model.

[Surface Tension]

$300 is still relativity cheap for a grinder but for occasional use more then enough.

Throat number is the first indicator as to what size chunks you can feed into the grinder and what size barrel it has.

HP is another indicator as to what the grinder will handle.

A small (#12)cheap grinder will grind up 75 lbs of meat but it'll take longer and you'll have do a lot more cutting.

It'll also need to be taken apart and cleared from clogs at the knife and plate because of size.

BTW when you trim do so in long strips instead of chunks and vary the width according to the size throat.

Those small grinders work well for when you bring home a chuck roast or a pork butt to grind.

Clean up also matters along with product left in the barrel. The smaller the barrel the less un-ground meat left in it.

A bigger(#32)grinder is going to grind more meat per minute with less trimming and less time taking down to un-clog.

It'll be overkill for those small grinding jobs though.

Small vs big becomes a trade off if this will be dual purpose.

A #22 with 5/8 or 3/4 hp would be something in between for the Kitchen.

I have a small hand grinder and a #32 very old commercial electric.

No way I want to carry that out of the basement for small stuff.

Quality matters.

All Stainless steel or plastic body. I've seen small grinders with the plastic actually flex when a load was put on them.

Tolerances are going to be tighter in the knives, plates, barrel which will equal less clogs.

Bearings over bushings.

Replacement knives and plates.

Motors and gears. Some sound like they're grinding gears and the better ones sound nice and smooth.

A quality grinder should be the last grinder you'll ever need.

[Scott K]

Tom, look for special deals at the big stores in December on all of these models. I use a 3/4hp grinder, and we can grind a deer up in about 15 minutes or less. We used to run a smaller motor, and it would take about 20-25 per deer. I would go with the .5 horse, if all your going to do is a deer or two a year. I upgraded, because we end up doing many deer throughout the season. At times, we would have 10 deer to grind, so the extra 10 minutes per deer, helped. But if your only doing a couple, whats an extra 20 minutes worth to ya?

[LightningBG]

+1 on cutting into strips vs chunks.

I cut mine in strips and it will pull itself in, just feed the strips in one at a time. No need to push anything, until you get to the leftover chunks.

[lakeshoremunster]

If you can wait until black friday the bigger sporting goods store usually has them on sale during that time, I bought mine on black friday from gander last year for half off. Now time to go buy a meat slicer.

[harvey lee]

I will wait as I have not shot my 2 deer yet. Have to go back to ND and see if I can whack a buck and a doe. Then maybe, ML in Minnesota if I think I need 3 deer.

[DRH1175]

Honestly if you do it every year it will pay for itself in a hurry compared to the butcher grinding it. We have a 1 hp from Northern t--l. Works awesome we have had it for about 9 years and have probably ground well over a 1000 lbs in it over the years. Worth every penny. I am not sure what size plates it uses but they are about 3" or so and would grind a shoe if you wanted it to.