Overview

Grinding meat is one of the most common things that most home processors do, it doesn’t matter what sausage you are making or if you are just making a bulk ground product to add to products later, it all has to go through a grinder and getting it ground as quickly and cleanly as possible is going to help you make the best product you can.

So we wanted to show you two huge factors in what effects the length of time it takes you to grind your meat. Remember, the longer it is out of the cooler the more chance it is going to have to grow microorganisms and the warmer the meat is the harder it will be to grind and the more likely the fat is to smear.

Importance of Cold Meat

We are using our Walton’s 22 Meat Grinder and we will grind 2 separate batches to show you the difference cold meat can have on the speed of a grind. One was straight from the cooler and the other was sitting in our blast freezer for about 20 minutes. The first grind through a 3/8" on the meat from the cooler took us 3 minutes and the one from the freezer took us 2 minutes 35 second. So that is a small amount difference, certainly nothing to get excited about.

However, the real benefit is on the second grind which will always take longer. The 2nd grind, through a 1/8 inch plate took 14 minutes and the one from the freezer took 12 minutes 15 second. That is significant savings in time and also keeps your meat safer through this process.

If you really want your grind to go fast you can also put your head assembly, including plates, knives, and auger into the freezer for you grind.

ProCut #22 Grinder

The other thing that can really affect the speed and quality of your grind is, of course, your grinder. Obviously, size matters here but that’s not the only thing that matters. We repeated the test we did on the Weston pro #22 with our Pro -Cut #22 grinder. We used the same plates and knives so there was no difference with that. We also repeated the cooler vs freezer experiment here.

The first grind through a 3/8" on the meat from the cooler took us 2 minutes on both the batches. Honestly, the thing slowing this process down the most was probably my ability to keep pushing the meat down the throat of the grinder.

The 2nd grind, through a 1/8 inch plate took 5 minutes 30 seconds, compare that to 14 minutes on the Weston Pro #22 and the one from the freezer took 3 minutes 50 seconds instead of the 12 minutes it took with the other one. So clearly the grinder you are using matters as does the temperature of the meat you are trying to grind.

Now, obviously the pro-cut #22 is significantly more expensive than the Weston pro #22 but this is a good example of the advantages that commercial processors have over what you are trying to do at home. So, if you are trying to make a product at home that is as good as what you can get in the store you need to take every advantage of every little trick that you can!

Tips

If you really want your grind to go fast you can also put your head assembly, including plates, knives, and auger into the freezer for you grind.

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