You may not consider a meat grinder a necessary appliance to have in your kitchen, but each year more and more of these devices are being sold for use in home and professional kitchens. A lot of home chefs and gourmet cooks like to experiment with new dishes and control the ingredients that go into their food and a meat grinder is an excellent way to have that control. Whether you are looking to reduce the fat content in your sausage or want to limit other additives in your meat products like herbs, spices, and preservatives, a meat grinder is a great place to start.
How does a meat grinder work you may ask, lets take a look at the inner workings and see. After the meat is inserted into the top of the grinder it passes through a rotating blade (or knife) that cuts the meat, and then it's extruded threw the holes in the grinders cutting plates. The cutting plates are what will determine how fine or coarse the ground meat will be once it has been ground. Most meat grinders come standard with 3 different size cutting plates ranging from 3/16”, ¼”, and up to ½”, and will allow you to make any number of products from chicken, turkey, beef, veal, duck, pork, venison, or any other meat you can think of using.
When you’re considering purchasing a meat grinder you have 2 options, manual or electric. A manual meat grinder is meant for processing smaller quantities and requires a little elbow grease to operate. The manual meat grinder will let you grind 2 to 3 lbs of meat per minute and perfect for those cooks that will only use it occasionally and don’t mind grinding by hand. The more modern electric meat grinder will help save time and let you produce a lot more product in a shorter period of time, and highly recommended for anyone that will be using their grinder on a regular basis or grinding large quantities of meat. Electric meat grinders work on the same principal as the manually operated grinders, only they tend to be slightly more complicated in design and have added features, which you may or may not need. Either model will get the job done, its up to you to decide which one will fit your needs the best.
Electric meat grinders are the perfect appliances for making hamburger meat, or sausage in any volume. Electric grinders come in several different sizes and are generally rated in horsepower, the higher the horsepower the more volume it will be capable of producing. The medium duty meat grinders are great for deer hunters or sausage makers who have lots grinding to do, but experts in this field say not only to consider power but for the best results you should also consider head size, bowl opening size, and pan size to ensure the grinder will work for you. There are lots of accessories for meat grinders: like sausage stuffing tubes that help get your ground sausage into the casing, meat tenderizer (often referred to as a cuber), as well as accessories for making all types of jerky snacks.
My good friends at J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment carry a huge selection of meat processing equipment from a number of top manufacturers including Univex, Fleetwood and Berkel. Perhaps the most inclusive lines are that of LEM Products who cater to the residential chef, hunter and hobbyist that enjoy processing their own meat. They have a full line of electric and manual meat grinders, sausage & jerky flavorings, preservatives, packaging, and many other meat processing necessities. If you have any questions or need help selecting the meat grinder that will be right for you give the friendly staff at J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment a call and let them help you with your selection. In addition to their great selection of meat processing supplies J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment also has all the commercial restaurant equipment and supplies as well as an amazing selection of residential kitchen supplies in their Residential Kitchen Emporium.
Grind on,
Chef Phil
