I’ve recently decided that I want to learn how to make my own burgers and sausages. Since I’m going in blind here, I have no idea what sort of meat grinder I should buy. I’m looking for something preferably costing less than $200 or so that’s durable, works well with different kinds of meat and has multiple settings so that I could do, say, a coarse grind for chili or a finer grind for burgers or loose meat, and hopefully good for stuffing sausage casings.
Anyone have a grinder at home that they love and could recommend? And for home sausage-makers; is there an online source for casings that you recommend, or would I be better off going to a local specialty butcher shop? (We have two in this town that I know of.)
We use the Kitchen Aid mixer grinder fairly often and it works well and is easy to clean. We aren’t doing large amounts of meat at a time: Typically a sirloin or two for burgers or a couple pork chops. Seems like it work well for large batches of sausage if needed.
I have a Kitchen Aid mixer that does okay as a grinder. But guess what? The butcher will grind meat for me whatever way I like it so for sausage I’ll get ground pork just the way I like it, and the casings there, combine all the ingredients by hand, and the Kitchen Aid is just a sauage stuffer in the end.
Any grinder worth anything can change the grind size by changing a metal plate. For just about any grinder you can get them with a variety of hole sizes.
Small grinders can have a tough time with tough meat, the motor isn’t all that powerful. You should partially freeze most meats so they’ll break up and cut more cleanly but you have to keep the cutting blade sharp.
The thing with getting a Kitchen Maid is that you can do so much more than grind with it.
I’d recommend getting the best product for the least investment. Once you have a general idea about what you are looking for, search Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc. Meat grinders are one of those things people purchase, use a few times, then sell.
I have an older version of theNorthern Tool No. 12 electric meat grinder. Looking at the durability comments in the posted reviews either I got lucky or the quality of the manufacture has declined because I’ve been using mine since I bought it in November of 2007 without any problems. I do note that the latest #12 is rated at 575 watts. I can’t find the manual for mine but the name plate on it says 1000 watts. Whether the new model’s rating of 575 watts is for continuous use and my version’s rating of 1000 watts is a peak rating is something I’m uncertain about.
In any case, mine does everything I need it to do. I don’t stuff sausage any more, when I make sausage I use it without casings. Stuffing sausage is one of those things that I thought I would enjoy doing but turned into a chore. I enjoy making and seasoning sausage so that’s OK. I use it to coarse grind pork, beef, and chicken for chili, meatballs, and other culinary needs as well.
I purchased one about three years ago when I decided to take my cats food to raw only. Of course I needed one that would do all parts of the animal, including bones. I went through a series of them actually, each time getting better quality and a higher cost.
Since, mostly you would not be needing one that was heavy duty enough to do bones, you can probably find one that is not as expensive as I finally ended up using. I do recommend raw feeding for cats completely, it changed my cats forever for the better.
Anyway, I would say if you are trying to figure things out, like has been said already, you might want to buy cheap at first so you can get a real idea of what you’ll need for your particular circumstances, and what you find acceptable and not acceptable. These break down into several pieces so if you buy used you will not know if it truly ‘works’ until you get some raw meat in it. It may look good, but until then you’ll not know. Also, keep in mind counter space if you’ll keep it out and be using it all the time.
And, like Tripolar said, the butcher works too in some cases.
One thing that many of the reviews of the Kitchen Aid grinder mention (and was borne out when I purchased one) is that the KA grinder produces a kind of grey ooze with the sausage. I found it very unappetizing.
This may not be relevant to a west-of-the-Atlantic audience (no idea about availability) but I’d say go Kenwood Chef (or Kenwood Major) over KitchenAid. KA are fine and they do look nice - iconic even - but Kenwood are indestructible and more powerful.
Again, I don’t know about availability but, if you can pick up a second hand one on eBay then you’ll have something you can keep going: the build quality is spectacular and the older ones (like most older electricals, I suppose) were built in such a way that you could maintain them.
I know this isn’t a “what’s the best food mixer” thread, but I did a lot of research into this before getting one! Get an old Kenwood if you can.
