# Meat Grinder **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 11, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250 "2011-10-11T03:16:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/1 "2011-10-11T03:16:35Z")
I found myself in a situation I never imagined… I had some Best Buy rewards certificates that were going to expire if I didn’t use them, and there wasn’t really anything I “needed” from there. They were for $95 which was too much to waste, but not enough to get anything really fun. Somehow I ended up looking at the kitchen area and one of the things I got was a meat grinder attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer. I figured it would be great for course grinding beef for Chili, but what else? Will I really save money by buying round steak and grinding it rather than buying ground round? Meat Loaf… meat balls… any suggestions so I can try to justify to my wife why this was an essential purchase? The other thing I bought was an electric slicer… I’ll figure that one out later. (The grinder is set to be delivered tomorrow.) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/2 "2011-10-11T03:53:49Z")
Alton Brown likes to grind his own beef for burgers. I have a cast-iron hand-cranked meat grinder. I use it for grinding the leftover roast leg of lamb for shepherd’s pie. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/3 "2011-10-11T04:07:49Z")
Make your own breakfast sausage out of pork shoulder or Boston Butt. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/4 "2011-10-11T04:28:44Z")
Well you bought a meat grinder. Did you expect it to do something else? You can control the size of your grind, so you don’t have to settle for grocery store mush. As mentioned above you can grind meat for hamburgers, meatloaf, sausage, and anything else that has ground meat. But you are unlikely to beat grocery store prices. They put all the trimmings, low quality cuts, and meat they don’t sell fast enough back into their grinders to make ground meats, and sell them at a lower price than the unground cuts. ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/5 "2011-10-11T06:11:59Z")
It certainly wouldn’t save you any money but I’m dying to know what a burger out of a really nice cut of meat might taste like. Tri-tip or something. Might be fun as a one-time experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/6 "2011-10-11T12:09:55Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Well you bought a meat grinder. Did you expect it to do something else? Nope, but with my experience on the Dope I figured someone would have experience and offer a wonderful blend involving exotic ingredients I would never think of. ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/7 "2011-10-11T12:13:59Z")
Grind fresh cranberries and oranges (and sugar, of course) for yummy cranberry relish. Ham and pork for ham loaf. And yes, grind your own beef. More sanitary, and when you cook it, it smells so much nicer. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/8 "2011-10-11T12:57:55Z")
> [@voguevixen](#): > > It certainly wouldn’t save you any money but I’m dying to know what a burger out of a really nice cut of meat might taste like. Tri-tip or something. Might be fun as a one-time experiment. Dry and bad. You want fatty meat for burger, Tri-tip is far too lean. The best commonly-found cut for burger IMO is chuck roast. It has an almost perfect ratio of fat to lean, and it will indeed make a better burger than what you find at the grocery store. Plus, you can cook it to medium-rare and not worry overmuch about food poisoning. Pork-wise (since the OP mentioned meatloaf), go with a Pork Shoulder. I used to have a Kitchenaid meat grinder and used it happily for years until it broke and I made the decision to go with a standalone grinder. Sausage is also really fun to make, and you can do it all with the Kitchenaid grinder if you’re ok with bulk sausage (that is, not in casings. If you want casings, you’ll have to buy a sausage stuffer). The fresh sausage section in [Charcuterie](http://www.amazon.com/Charcuterie-Craft-Salting-Smoking-Curing/dp/0393058298/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318337510&sr=8-1) has everything you need to know about technique and a pile of recipes, or if you’re looking for something in particular I’m happy to post it. A few tips on using the Kitchenaid grinder: - Cold is your friend. You want the meat coming out of the grinder looking like spaghetti - [here’s a good picture](http://manofthehouse.com/food/kitchen-gadgets/every-man-needs-meat-grinder-kitchen). If it’s wet, pasty, and not in nice spaghetti-ish strands, it’s pushing the meat through, not actually grinding it. Cut your meat into 1/2" chunks and put it in the freezer for an hour or so before grinding. It shouldn’t be frozen hard, but it should definitely have a crunch to it. Likewise, put your grinder bits in the freezer as well. The colder, the better. - If you’re grinding for burger or meatloaf, you’ll want to grind twice on the finest grind. Sausage, grind once at the medium grind. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/9 "2011-10-11T13:54:48Z")
Perfect… thank you **Athena** (and others). I’ll probably start fairly simple and try a coarse grind for some chili tonight. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/10 "2011-10-11T13:59:46Z")
There are sausage stuffer attachements for the Kitchen Aid meat grinder that work pretty well. I have made linguica on a couple of occasions. You can get sausage casings from any butcher shop. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/11 "2011-10-12T00:18:59Z")
We use our KA grinder pretty often - as mentioned a few times above, it’s great for making your own burger if you happen to find chuck for cheaper than burger at the store, and when you grind it fresh, you can safely have a mid-rare or rare hamburger. The food slicer, I hate to say, if it was one of the models that sells for about $100, you’ll probably hate it. We bought the Waring model a while back, and it was terrible - no power, so we had to push the carriage slowly, and cleanup was ridiculous - I forget what part it was, but one of the pieces that food contacted could not be removed for cleaning. ---
**Author:** ![Terraplane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Terraplane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terraplane)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meat-grinder/599250/12 "2011-10-12T14:33:56Z")
I haven’t had a chance to try it myself, but ground sirloin, chuck, and brisket (in a 2:1:1 ratio) is supposed to make an excellent burger. Just try to make sure the final result is around 80/20 fat mixture. If you’re a bacon fan you can also grind it right into the mixture along with the beef. My burning desire to try this is going to make me break down and buy a grinder attachment one of these days.