Let's talk meat grinders..
- Thread starter Mr. Bjorn
- Start date
My hunting buddy used a treadmill motor with speed control to a #32 grinder and flywheel type gearing. Worked great as we ground up trimmings of 2 moose in an evening.
Living in South Africa my father and his brothers used to go to Botswana every year for biltong and droe wors(dry sausage) They used to shoot a lot of animals including buffalo. The border between SA and Botswana would to allow wet meat to come through but dried meat was OK.
They hooked up the back wheel of a truck to a grinder with a pully and fanbelt while jacking up the one back wheel and motor running. LOL . The sausages and biltong would then be strung amongst the trees on barbed wire till dry. In those dry conditions it would take less than 5 days to be legal 1960's. A buff permit was 1,5 british pounds and elephant around 15. Good old days!!!
Living in South Africa my father and his brothers used to go to Botswana every year for biltong and droe wors(dry sausage) They used to shoot a lot of animals including buffalo. The border between SA and Botswana would to allow wet meat to come through but dried meat was OK.
They hooked up the back wheel of a truck to a grinder with a pully and fanbelt while jacking up the one back wheel and motor running. LOL . The sausages and biltong would then be strung amongst the trees on barbed wire till dry. In those dry conditions it would take less than 5 days to be legal 1960's. A buff permit was 1,5 british pounds and elephant around 15. Good old days!!!
I was given a CTire grinder (Waring?) for a present a while back, but it had issues from the too late to do anything about it outset, as I had it for well past the warranty period before I tried to run any serious load through it.
I may have just finally beat to death my Princess Auto grinder that came from a garage sale for $5. It sounded like it had rocks in the gears from day one, but worked like a trooper until I stuffed a nearly complete lower leg tendon bundle into it, and stopped it. It eventually ran again, but it clicks...
But a bud dropped off a #22 size unit that was at his place when he moved in. Took two folks to put it on to the kitchen counter, damn near killed me getting out of the way and down the stairs! Heavy pig! Not cheapskates with the cast iron when they built it!
Figure I will rewire it from 220V to 110V (dual voltage motor) and buy a new knife and plate for it, as the knife seems OK, but the plate looks fine enough to make bologna with.
I figure that a fellow that wanted to save some coin would be best to be looking at the Number 32 hand crank type units that can be easily motorized with a couple pulleys. The Cabela's machines, I have not used, but am leery of the price difference between them and comparable models from the meat cutting suppliers, which seem to be running right around $1K for the size range, on up to real money.
In any case, the cardinal rule is the same. Sharp plate, sharp knife, cold meat, and tighten the cap on to hold the thing together until you think it'll break, then a little more!
It keeps the knife against the plate, thus keeping it cutting.
Kinda handy to have a wrench that fits the cap, for taking it apart afterwards!
Cheers
Trev
I may have just finally beat to death my Princess Auto grinder that came from a garage sale for $5. It sounded like it had rocks in the gears from day one, but worked like a trooper until I stuffed a nearly complete lower leg tendon bundle into it, and stopped it. It eventually ran again, but it clicks...
But a bud dropped off a #22 size unit that was at his place when he moved in. Took two folks to put it on to the kitchen counter, damn near killed me getting out of the way and down the stairs! Heavy pig! Not cheapskates with the cast iron when they built it!
Figure I will rewire it from 220V to 110V (dual voltage motor) and buy a new knife and plate for it, as the knife seems OK, but the plate looks fine enough to make bologna with.
I figure that a fellow that wanted to save some coin would be best to be looking at the Number 32 hand crank type units that can be easily motorized with a couple pulleys. The Cabela's machines, I have not used, but am leery of the price difference between them and comparable models from the meat cutting suppliers, which seem to be running right around $1K for the size range, on up to real money.
In any case, the cardinal rule is the same. Sharp plate, sharp knife, cold meat, and tighten the cap on to hold the thing together until you think it'll break, then a little more!
It keeps the knife against the plate, thus keeping it cutting.Kinda handy to have a wrench that fits the cap, for taking it apart afterwards!
Cheers
Trev
what are these old hand crank meat grinders worth at say a yard sale? I got 2 or 3 laying around. Should I just toss them in a car that's going in for scrap metal or offer them for sale? Hate to see them go to waste if someone can use them.
patricksbb391
CGN Regular
- Location
- Ottawa & WMU 62
I ended up with an "Electric tomato squeezer" by OMRA. Built like a tank, and European quality. I see the OP is in Toronto, so you should have food stores or hardwares that cater to this stuff.
I picked up a cheap grinder on sale at Princess Auto for 49.99. Works good and the sausage attachment is ok. I didn't want to invest much for a starter unit incase i didn't want to keep at it, i can always up grade if i want to.
BigUglyMan
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- New Scotland
I do the same for small batches but if you ever decide to do a lot of grinding (think "moose camp" or "bison hunt") eventually you will kill your Kitchenaid and they're not giving those things away!
If/when I move back to a part of the country with some animals in it I will be upgrading to a larger more powerful grinder. The money spent on quality equipment will save you time in the long run, and money. I took the grinding parts of my bison to the butcher shop after 30lbs killed a $100 electric grinder. I would rather have ground it myself to save money and in the end the money I spent at the butcher probably would have put a significant dent in the amount it would have cost to buy a good grinder.
I was lucky to inherit one of the Hobart units referred to earlier and will say they will do just about anything IF the blades are sharp.
Something I was told at my butcher supply store was that the knife should be matched to the plate. If you change plates on a double grind -I use a 3/8 plate first, then change to 3/16 for the second, you should have a separate blade for each plate. I notice I do not have to sharpen blades near as often. Every couple hundred pounds instead of every 25 pounds.
This thing will do 25 pounds in less than 5 minutes. Did a 100 in less than half an hour. Clean up is a breeze. They are worth the money no doubt only downfall is you will soon have many friends once your buddies see how well it works.
Something I was told at my butcher supply store was that the knife should be matched to the plate. If you change plates on a double grind -I use a 3/8 plate first, then change to 3/16 for the second, you should have a separate blade for each plate. I notice I do not have to sharpen blades near as often. Every couple hundred pounds instead of every 25 pounds.
This thing will do 25 pounds in less than 5 minutes. Did a 100 in less than half an hour. Clean up is a breeze. They are worth the money no doubt only downfall is you will soon have many friends once your buddies see how well it works.
That would be a "bump-n-grinder"
#32 with motor: (in case you do not know what it looks like)
I'm pretty mechanically handy. I will look around for a #32; we've got plenty of home-made grinder rigs that I could poach the motor and belt from. Offhand, best places to look for a #32 would be things like ebay, etc? I would just be concerned about the shape the blades would be in if I was buying used.
We grind our own to get away from the crap that gets thrown into store bought ground, so ya, remove as much fat, tendon, silver skin, etc...as possible. Goes quick with a sharp knife, if you're doing a big batch (like a couple cattle) have two or three good knives on hand per person. Every once in a while someone can grab the dull ones and run them over a steel or stone. I don't know why you'd want to eat that stuff.
Like many have said on here cold meat is the key. That is if you want to eat all those tendons and stuff. I prefer lean & clean. A tight blade to cutter match helps too. A little cooking oil on the faces till it gets the meat grinding through it stops the squeaking too. I have a Bosch mixer with the grinding attachment. It has done deer, moose, and bear. The most important part is keep the meat cold. Sure beats the big bucks butchers charge for that service.
Princess Auto for the grinder, any meat cutter supply place for the plates and knives after you wore out the set that comes with.
The sizing on these is more or less standardized and you can get parts that fit, pretty much anywhere. The plates and knives, that is.
If you come across a commercial meat grinder or food chopper motor that needs a grinder, I see complete assemblies available on ebay for Hobart style and such grinders. Again, the benefits of some standardization in the industry.
Cheers
Trev
Try TSC or Princess Auto. A google search should find a new one in Ontario. I got mine, same as NL-Hunters, in Guelph, 5 years ago or so, for 50 bucks, new.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
Three yrs ago I bought a motorized table top sized grinder from Princess for around a 100 bucks and have never regretted it. I can grind 30 or 40 lbs of deer & pork trim in about 15 min. It came with sausage tubes but the one complaint I had with it is that it re-ground the meat too fine while stuffing the sausage. I solved that problem when I bought a small 5 kg hand driven stuffer for $75. takes about 30 min to stuff a full deer sized batch. The whole outfit paid for itself the first yr.
Besides the financial benefit, another big benefit to do-it-yourself is that you can do smaller batches of a given type of sausage to your preference. Most commercial shops will only break up into min. of 20 lb batches.
Besides the financial benefit, another big benefit to do-it-yourself is that you can do smaller batches of a given type of sausage to your preference. Most commercial shops will only break up into min. of 20 lb batches.
I have used a Cuisinart one from CT for about 5 years now. It grinds great, but useless for stuffing casings. Two years ago, we bought a 20 lb stuffer from Cabela's. I have an OLD Cleveland Klean Kut that's gotta be 60 years old that would probably double as a wood chipper if I needed it to. Dang thing is too heavy to haul out for a deer so it usually stays put until I am ready to grind dog food. I don't spend the same amount of time cleaning that up so they get tendons, silver skin on the meat, etc., and THAT'S when the big guy comes out. It doesn't even slow down.
That would be a "bump-n-grinder"
#32 with motor: (in case you do not know what it looks like)
looks like she hums just fine, but too heavy for me to move around. I have to go with a modern day stainless steel heavy duty but compact model.
