# Grinding your own meat?



## PNWKatie (Aug 4, 2012)

I've never done it before but Kinda sorta remember my mom doing it a little when I was very young. With the price of hamburger meat being almost $5 a pound I was wondering if it would be possible to get some of the cheaper beef meats and grind it into my own hamburger. Also thinking of making our own ground pork, sausage, etc. 

Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

Thanks!


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## alpacaspinner (Feb 5, 2012)

Yes, of course you can grind your own. I often do. Naturally you will need a meat grinder. A food processor can also be used, but you have to careful not to grind it to a mush. A big plus is that you can trim off as much fat as you want, for leaner hamburger (though I prefer it not so very lean); and you will know for sure that your grinder is clean before you start, and that the ground meat has been freshly ground, and not been sitting about for awhile.


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## Feisty Farm (Apr 10, 2012)

chuck roasts are often on sale pretty cheap. I have also ground pork loins up. They are often only 1.59 a lb where I live. We also grind our own deer meat. Chicken and turkey are also something you can try.


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## Jeepgirl86 (May 18, 2012)

I grind venison all the time. You do have to work at getting the fat to meat ratio just right, otherwise you wind up with either burgers that start out at 1/2 pounders and wind up 2 ounces or just the opposite and too tough to eat! lol I grind pork too but haven't found a good spice ratio yet for breakfast type sausage.


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## sss3 (Jul 15, 2007)

I'd like to try grinding chicken; but don't know how. Or, what to do w/it once it's ground?


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## PNWKatie (Aug 4, 2012)

Thanks guys! I'd much rather pay 2.00 for a roast/beef and grind it myself! Guess I'll start looking for a good meat grinder!


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## PNWKatie (Aug 4, 2012)

Sandra Spiess said:


> I'd like to try grinding chicken; but don't know how. Or, what to do w/it once it's ground?


Once it's ground you can freeze it. If I'm going to do meatballs I'll precook and then freeze in meal size servings for fast dinners.

I like ground chicken for:

Sweet/sour chicken meatballs over rice
Chicken taco's
Chicken nacho's


Well really just about anything &#128522;


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## netskyblue (Jul 25, 2012)

I wonder, can you save (freeze) fat to grind in with meat later? If say, you're preparing meat for canning or such where you don't want the fat, so you cut it off the uncooked meat. Could you freeze that and later thaw to grind with lean meat?

I'm thinking weigh the meat, weigh the fat, so you have the ratio you want, and grind.


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## LonelyNorthwind (Mar 6, 2010)

Yes, you can freeze the fat for later but it gets freezer-burn pretty fast. You can probably get fresh fat (suet) from the butcher any time you need, the store here gives it away free. I, however, prefer no fat in my grind - if you add a potato to the grinder and mix that in you still get meat that holds together without the added fat. Or add about 1/3 ground pork to your red meat, makes for great burgers, sausage, meatloaf or whatever else you use ground meat for and it holds together really well. Just add a bit of oil to the pan when cooking so it doesn't stick.
You don't have to go out and spend a lot of money on a grinder, if you have a kitchen-aid mixer, the meat grinder attachment does a pretty good job for a lot less $. 

P>S> there's no way I'd ever buy the pink slime labled "ground beef" in the grocery stores. The thought of feeding my family ground guts & gristle makes me gag.


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## danielsumner (Jul 18, 2009)

I use the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer all the time. I don't/won't buy anything already ground at the store, especially after the pink slime fiasco. I get roasts and steaks on sale and grind away. I really like it when the boneless pork steaks are on sale for buy one get one free. They make the best sausage. Chuck roasts/steaks and similar cuts for ground beef. This I run through the grinder twice. For pasta sauce and chili I use lean cuts (also on sale) such as top round or London broil, these cuts I only ground one. Many times ground beef is $4.99 or more, get a roast or steak and grind away. Tip for clean up. Run a piece of sandwich bread though the grinder when you are finished and it will help clean the grinder.

Daniel


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## CNCfamily (Sep 13, 2010)

I second (or third!) the KitchenAid mixer! We process all our own game, and my KA hasn't let me down yet! We get most our ground beef from the butcher that's a block away, so i don't usually have to worry about grocery store crap!


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## imthedude (Jun 7, 2011)

of course you can grind your own. pork shoulder makes the best sausage. i've never done beef any beef for hamburger, but i've done a LOT of elk and deer for hamburger. very easy to do. meat needs to be trimmed of excess fat and sinew then cut into chunks before grinding. there are a lot of recipe sources for making sausage, brats, etc.

as far as grinders, for small quantities the standup kitchen aid with the meat grinding attachment works pretty good. i use that for sausage and used it for my elk last fall. for bigger quantities the cabela's grinders are really nice, fast, and clean but spendy.


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## blooba (Feb 9, 2010)

Get an electric grinder also. Would be nice if it was manual also(power outages) but trying to grind any meat other than ground bolongna salad or whatnot is too much work (for you) with manual grinders.

Right now non pink slime ground beef is more expensive than whole cuts of meat so my grinder is getting a workout. I have a kitchenaid mixer one and a standalone one. the kitchenaid is good for smaller batches but when i'm doing a bunch the standalone one is broken out.


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## Jeepgirl86 (May 18, 2012)

I bought my grinder at Harbor Freight. It wasn't very expensive and it definitely does what I need it to do. I'm not grinding industrial/commercial amounts of meat so it works well, without a huge expense. I have a manual grinder that was my grandma's...it doesn't grind as fine as we like, plus it is hard to crank! lol You can partially freeze the meat and it grinds easier.


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## Mike CHS (Apr 3, 2011)

I noticed in a flyer yesterday that Northern Tools has the Kitchener grinder on sale for $99. We have that model and use it a lot with no issues.


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