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So, what to do. Buy the meat grinder and use my hand blender or magic bullet to make sauces. Or forget the meat grinder all together and get a food processor. Or both?
You should get a separate meat-grinder and food processor. I have both and I'm more than satisfied. Cleaning meat out of a food processor can be a chore.
We have a meat-slicer that we got used from a grocery store meat department.
We have a meat grinder that we got from a restaurant supply wholesale outlet.
We use them a lot, but we also live on a farm, where we raise chickens and pigs.
My Dw does a lot of canning foods [pressure-canning and hot-water-bath methods].
About a month ago my Dw got a 'harvest-right' freeze-dryer. She loves it. She keeps it running, batch after batch.
How much is the meat you're planning to grind? I can get ground beef cheaper than I can get the beef I would be grinding up, so for me it doesn't make financial sense to grind my own.
I agree, looking at just the raw figures, pre-made ground beef is incredibly inexpensive. However, IMO, it is just one step up from dog food. The meat that goes into it can be any beef muscle meat and obtained cheaply and with minimal oversight. Bits of bone in it are not uncommon, and one chub might contain meat from a number of different cows, blended together.
I've stepped away from it, at a minimum upgrading to ground chuck, but recently I've been noticing something different even there (perhaps the sanitizer used on the equipment not being completely rinsed?). As government inspection is bound to get leaner with changes in funding and regulation, I'm about to pull the trigger on a proper grinder myself, so that I know exactly what is going into my burgers and ground meat. There is a local abattoir, so getting out of the main production stream would seem safer if there was an outbreak of some disease like mad cow. Statistically, the meat from a single local animal is less a risk than meat from a hundred random animals from all over the country. (Your meat may vary)
How much is the meat you're planning to grind? I can get ground beef cheaper than I can get the beef I would be grinding up, so for me it doesn't make financial sense to grind my own.
I was just thinking the same thing...I get 90% lean ground beef at Sams Club for $3.19 a pound, it would be hard to find anything cheaper than that to grind up.
You can save a lot of money, you and your family by...eating less meat. Grocery bills and health bills.
this may be true, but I am not sure I saw anyplace where the OP mentioned how much meat they eat. I think she just wants to grind her own, whether it is once a week, once a month or 7 days a week. BTW, depending on how much and what kind of meat one eats compared to other ways of getting enough protein, meat is not always more expensive. Fresh produce for instance, especially off season can be very costly. Nuts and cheese, other sources of protein can be costly as well.
A good meat grinder costs a substantial chunk of money and it is not worth the cost to buy it unless you are going to grind a lot of meat.
I have a meat grinder and my family uses it, but we grind a lot of meat. I make home cooked dog food and I am feeding about 28 pounds of ground meat every week. Beef is slightly cheaper than hamburger, only if you buy primal cuts. That's the 40 pound chunks. Other than that, the chunks of meat that you grind costs more than the ground beef.
I grind cheaper meats: pork, turkey, chicken because it is easier to cook dog food with ground meat than it is to cook it in large chunks and then cut it up. My grinder gets a work-out.
Here's the advantage in home ground for a family. Hamburger from the store can be made of scraps or lower grade beef. It can be fairly inexpensive or it can be quite expensive. Home ground can be top of the line, expensive quality burger if you want to make the effort.
I buy whole chunks of beef by the box, about 80 pounds of meat. I buy lean rounds (rear haunch) for the dogs and I buy USDA choice grade, certified Angus beef shoulders for my family. For the dogs, everything gets ground coarse,. For my family, the meat is very carefully cleaned to remove every drop of non-muscle. All tendons, gristle, nerves are removed. Meat is coarse ground and then put through the grinder again with a smaller blade.
The people's burger then gets weighted out into 6 ounce patties, bagged and frozen. One grinding session takes hours, but the meat lasts us for months. It is absolutely the best burger that you can eat. Just the right amount of fat for flavor, certified angus, it tastes like eating steak.
One thing that you can do with a home grinder is to buy the turkeys on sale at the holidays. Grind the breast meat and you will have the most delicious ground turkey. It doesn't resemble the ground turkey that you buy in even the slightest.
My food processor mostly gets used to grate cheese. I don't like the bags of pre-grated cheese; there is something off about the texture. So, I buy the 5 pound block of cheese, grate it with the food processor, and freeze it. I don't think there is any money savings but my family likes the texture and flavor of the block cheese better.
I have never thought of grating cheese in bulk, I too, do not like the pre grated cheese. It has absolutely no flavor. I usually just grate enough for whatever I am making at the time.
I was just thinking the same thing...I get 90% lean ground beef at Sams Club for $3.19 a pound, it would be hard to find anything cheaper than that to grind up.
I was buying the 90% lean ground beef there for $2.88/lb. Last time, I was unhappy to see that it had gone up to $3.19/lb but when I packaged it for the freezer, I noticed they'd switched to Angus. You can taste the difference, too. I'm more than happy to pay $3.19/lb for 90% lean Angus.
I was buying the 90% lean ground beef there for $2.88/lb.
Does it come in one of those tubes?
Quote:
I'm more than happy to pay $3.19/lb for 90% lean Angus.
I would be too but I haven't seen that price level in a real meat shop
or even a grocery story meat dept (neither of which describes a Sams Club or WM)
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