Electric grinder ?

[Cooter]

Probably already been discussed to death but I see Scheel's has an LEM for like $70...not sure what power, probably not even .25 cuz its rated in watts I believe. Anywho, are these little guys worth getting or am I gonna want a bigger one each time I use it? Think its rated for 2-3lbs/min. I'm looking at grinding for jerky, burger, and sausage...about 3 deer/yr. Thanks all.

[LABS4ME]

Spend the extra money and go to a bigger better grinder. In the old days we burned out 2 of the cheapies... we do 3-6 deer a year... it doesn't take long if they get heated up.

I bought one of the smaller cabelas units and it is awesome! Costs about what 3 of the little guys cost, but worth it!

Good Luck!

Ken

[Shack]

I purchased one from northern tool like the one above! I have very good luck mincing meat over the year with it!

That or you could take one of those hand crank ones and take handle off (you might have to grind or machine end a little) and use a heavy duty hand drill! Someone I know did this and has had good luck over the years!

The bigger the better! Its hard to justify $400-$500 bucks for a grinder, but over the years it will pay for its self!

Good luck!

[jbdragon17]

I have one like Shackbash has. It will do the job, but it will be slow. I went out and had my scrap from last year ground at a butcher. $1.50/lb to grind the scrap and have it packaged. I figure I will do that again. Not bad paying 34.50 to me. Now I can use my small grinder to stuff sausage.

[MN Mike]

Quote:

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That or you could take one of those hand crank ones and take handle off (you might have to grind or machine end a little) and use a heavy duty hand drill! Someone I know did this and has had good luck over the years!

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That is what we do, we have a #32 grinder and a heavy drill, you can put up some big amounts of ground meat in no time, it's nice to have a drill with variable speed if possible. If you don't have a heavy duty drill, you can buy a smaller grinder, should work great.

I have a Cabelas 1/2 h.p and have since retired it or atleast don't use it as much, the #32 is waaay faster with the drill attached.

Mike

[Scott K]

I too have the hand crank style, mounted it to a 1x10x2' board, removed hand crank, mounted a pulley on it, and run it with an old electric motor, hook a belt between the 2, works perfect, and has for 15 years, no problems, quick, and for less then $100.

[Shack]

Jb,

I thought for the price, it was pretty quick! I do not scrape out the whole deer. You can not send a whole rump roast threw it and you do have to cut into chunks the correct size to fit down throat, but I do grind my whole deer. Plus its doen right away (no waiting) and you get your own deer meat back.

Now for sausage, it will fill casings as quick as you can load the meat.

[jbdragon17]

The way I look at it is that I would spend 3-4 hours washing, cutting, grinding, packaging, and clean-up.

For about $35 I took about 10 minutes to drop off 23 lbs of scrap to have them wash, cut, grind, and package it. The trick is to wait a while to do it so you get it back in a day and you are the only one who brought in Venison. Chances are they might be able to grind it for you while you wait.

It just makes more sense to me to have it ground.

[Shack]

Oh I seen your point jb! I forgot to point that out and its a good little tip!

[Mike89]

$35.00 for 23 pounds is interesting. 25 cents a pound is the most I"ve seen. But I don't get to the cities. a grinder and cleaning will pay for themselfs fast.

[Jackpine Rob]

Way back when Mrs. Jackpine and I tied the knot, Grandma's stock wedding present was a Hobart(Kitchenaid) mixer.

Knowing me, she bought the meat grinder attachment, and packaged it separately. It has gotten heavy use.

http://www.kitchenaid.com/catalog/category.jsp?categoryId=310

I just picked up the sausage stuffing attachment, and we will be trying it out next week (with any luck at all).

I've probably ground up over a thousand pounds of burger with that thing over the years.

[Surface Tension]

Since the subject is about grinders we'll assume that you want the meat that you've taken the extra time to trim off the fat, connective & silver tissue. That in itself will give you a superior product over bulk ground meat from a processor.

I have an old commercial grinder that my Grand parents used in their Italian Store. That was back when stuff came in barrels.

It will grind all day long, problem is its heavy. I bought a hand grinder from Northern Tool that works well for small jobs. If I'm doing 100 lbs of Italian Sausage I take out the big grinder. I plan on motorizing the hand grinder at some time. I hadn't thought about VRS drill. 1/2 would be the way to go to get that low end torque. I did by a large pulley for the grinder just haven't found a motor yet.

I also have stuffers, the cheap one doesn't work well, with a lot of blow out from an inferior seal. The cheap hand grinder does a surprisingly good job at stuffing.

Anyway the hand grinders are inexpensive. Grinding is simple and to grind up the trimming from one deer doesn't take long. It takes longer to setup and clean up then time grinding.

Now you could bring in your trimming and ask to have it ground as you wait, how many processors will setup and clean up for one batch? Not many.

For you up and coming sausage makers out there, this is the time of year pork butts go on sale so get them at that low price now.

Whats a good price, 99 cents or under a lb.

[rookie44]

I use the kitchen-aide mixer attatchment also.works great!

[Steve Foss]

Another one here with the KitchenAid grinder attachment. Cost about $50.

I got my mate a KitchenAid mixer the first year we were married and we added the grinder the year after. It's processed as many as three deer in one "sitting" without missing a beat.

Of course, if you don't already have the KitchenAid, you can make BIG points with your ladies by buying one for them (pricey but a lifelong investment), and you can probably get her to pop for the measly $50 for the grinder.

If a person is doing deer after deer after deer, then I'd definitely recommend one of the stronger dedicated meat grinders. I've used a couple models of those when we were butchering beef, because then you REALLY need staying power.

[Shack]

Surface,

Around here I am hard pressed to find it under a $1.50 a pound. I would say .99 cents per pound is a great price!

What percentage do you run in your meat? 20%, 15% or 10%? I am thinking of running a little leaner this year on some of my stuff and running a little thicker on others. I have it wrote down at home in my seasoning box, but I think I am going to try 10% on Summer, 15% on my breakfast and brats and 20% on my beer sticks. I think? I think my summer was run at 15% last year and really sweated out the oil/fat and I ran beer sticks at 15% and they seemed to dry. Mix and match and mix some more. I do have a jerky seasoning and marinate down pretty fat. I make the most of this out of my roasts and steaks. So do not grind every thing, the jerky is the best.

I was thinking a little harder about bringing my meat into a meat market to have it ground up. For one, I would not do it because I like to set up and have sausage and beer sticks with in two to three days after processing. Also I figure once out of site, out of mind (for me). Bam, bam, bam. Meat cuts and sausage for the next year. But what really makes me frown from taking meat into a butcher shop, was I worked in a butcher shop on and off for 7 years. I would say we where pretty clean and did not have any out breaks of sickness, but I could see where this might happen today and at a place I am not working behind the counter, you never know what goes on. Clean, Clean and more clean. After I clean my grinder, I store it in freezer year round. I learned this by watching butchers do this in meat market. I take it out of freezer and it ready to go the next year.

[Surface Tension]

shackbash, $1.50 lb. isn't bad, keep an eye on the Sunday ads because its that season when pork butts go on sale.

Out of season, I'll ask the butcher for a box(around 50 lbs) and he'll order one and at a good price.

Pork butts can vary on fat content so I adjust my ratios to that.

When smoking sausage you don't want it to drip fat. If its drips it'll be dry so lower that temp. Then when it comes time to cook and eat it it'll be moist.

[sjburnt]

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