How Do Meat Grinders Work? - Meat Processing Equipment 101
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How Do Meat Grinders Work?
What are the Main Functions of a Meat Grinder?
The main function of a meat grinder is to take a whole muscle cut of meat and break it down into a ground format that can then be seasoned, cured, stuffed into a casing, and cooked.
How Do Meat Grinders Work?
Electric grinders have a hopper at the top where you load the meat that you are preparing to grind. The hopper has a hole in it that leads down to the throat of the grinder, where an auger that is powered by the motor pushes the meat towards the plate and knife that will cut and grind your meat. The grinding knife goes behind the plate with the sharpened surface facing towards the plate; this cuts the meat and forces it through the holes of the grinding plate, the larger the holes on the grinding plate, the faster your meat will grind and the coarser your product will be. Many products need to be ground twice, sometimes through a larger plate first and then through a smaller plate, and sometimes twice through a larger plate.
How Important is it?
It depends on what type of meat you will most often be starting with. If you are going to be starting with whole muscle cuts, then it is the most important piece of equipment that you can have! Other than a Bowl Chopper, which is an expensive commercial piece of equipment that will allow you to take a whole piece of meat and break it down into a ground product.
Alternatives to Meat Grinders
Like we said above, a Bowl Chopper will offer you similar functionality, but the cost makes them unreasonable for the home processor. The main alternative to a Meat Grinder is to purchase already ground meat. If you want to make snack sticks, you can buy ground pork and seasoning, cure it, and then use a Sausage Stuffer to stuff it into casings.
Should You Buy a Grinder?
If you are choosing between a meat grinder and a sausage stuffer to make meat/sausage at home, we would say a wild game processor should go with the grinder, as it will allow them to break down the carcass and stuff, and the person using beef or pork should get a sausage stuffer and buy pre-ground meat from the store.
Best Choice For Beginners
The Walton’s #12 Meat Grinder is a nice choice for beginners, as it gives you a medium-sized plate with a powerful enough motor to break down larger cuts while staying under $200.
Other Information on Meat Grinders
Grinders come in different sizes with different grinding capacities; the number associated with the grinder corresponds to the size of the head assembly, as well as the plate and knife you can use with that grinder. Standard sizes are #8 and #12, which are the same size, and #22 and #32.
A larger grinder, like a # 32, will use a plate that is 3-15/16" in diameter, and something like Walton’s # 32 can grind upwards of 18 lb a minute. The power of a meat grinder also plays an important role in how many lb a minute it can process and how long it can be run. Power can range from 575 watts on a small # 8 kitchen grinder up to 1.5 horsepower for the Walton’s # 32 series. The amount of horsepower is important as this is what drives the auger in the head assembly, and more power means you can grind faster and use larger chunks of meat, saving you processing time.
Some meat grinders do have the ability to act as sausage stuffers as well as a grinder. You can switch out the plate and knife for a star stuffing adapter, attach a stuffing horn and stuff your ground product into casings or meat bags. While the stuffing capability is a nice thing to have, it is much harder and will take longer to stuff with your grinder than using an actual sausage stuffer. Because of the pressure required to stuff a product into smaller casings, meat grinders will not work on anything smaller than a bratwurst or hotdog-sized product.
Both plates and knives are available in disposable and sharpenable versions. Disposable should be used until they are dull and then thrown out, sharpenable plates and knives can be sent into Walton’s, and we will sharpen them for a small fee. These types of plates and knives are more expensive initially, but it is much cheaper to have us sharpen them than buy new ones; plus, they are made of a higher quality and will give you a better finished product. You can see the difference between a disposable and a sharpenable knife just by looking at it; the disposable will look like a pinwheel and just has a flat edge, while the sharpenable knife has a quality piece of steel on each arm that sticks up from the body.
Shop waltonsinc.com for Meat Grinders
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I’m looking for recommendations on an electric meat grinder that is under $200 and QUIET. I understand that all electric meat grinders will make noise but I’m looking for a quieter one… something similar to the noise level of the L*M Big Bite. It’s sole purpose is to grind BONELESS chicken thighs and nothing else. Please help!
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Foodforcats The Weston #12 750 watt is right out, that thing is LOUD. Here is a comparison between the old weston #8 and the weston #8 black series https://youtu.be/bL3ZOWEqsdM?t=139 I’d say that which is here
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Foodforcats The #8 is a good grinder. I’ve used it in a professional setting and almost abused it and it keeps ticking. It’s loud-ish but nothing compared to using a KitchenAid with grinder attachment.
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Joe Hell Saying that it is quieter than the KitchenAid? I assume but I want to be sure that is what you mean before I add you against your will to
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltons.com youtube page at https://www.youtube.com/@waltonsinc
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Tex_77 Team Blue Power User Traeger Primo Grills PK Grills Canning Sous Vide Community Moderator Kansas
The opinion is to buy a grinder from Walton’s, might I suggest https://www.waltonsinc.com/weston-22-meat-grinder-butcher-series-1-hp
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BONES!!! Can anyone do a series on the growing trend for homemade dog and cat food? Specifically the need to grind bones from various species, not just poultry and rabbit? Are there any grinders or machines built to grind bones like pork, lamb, venison and beef? We have a dog with severe food allergies and can have no poultry, fish, lamb, venison or pork and he is currently on a diet that is beef based and we need to grind beef bone - rib and neck bones at least.
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truckmountgirl We’ve covered this in a few other posts (might have been yours?) but beef bones aren’t something you are going to want to put through any retail grinder at all and we had a few commercial processors chime in and say they wouldn’t put them through their commercial grinders either We’ve done a decent amount of research on this and other than the weston pro 22 and 32 (and who knows when those are coming back) there just don’t seem to be a lot of grinders on the retail market that will reliably grind even softer bones, let alone beef bones.
One more caviat, I’ve seen a few “best of” lists that recommend using XYZ or whatever grinders to do bones and then when you read the information on that products page they clearly state that it does not grind bones.
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Yeah, I get the same feedback. Is there another type of machine (other than a grinder) that does harder bones? I have even thought about using a wood chipper, I think it would work, but the noise…plus cleaning it so that it was sanitary…
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truckmountgirl As far as we are aware there isn’t a readily available machine that does this. Now, our target customer isn’t someone looking to grind bones but I spent a good 20-30 minutes the other day trying to google a machine that grinds beef bones and I found absolutely nothing. You might try reaching out to a pet food company? Sorry, that’s the best I can think of!
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AAAAAANNNND back and with an answer! Sometimes google isn’t the best, sometimes duckduckgo has it beat! The machine you would want to look for is called a Bone Crusher(amazing name), not a grinder! Looked on Ebay for you real quick and there are some but they look like chicken/fish based ones, so if you do buy something make sure it is rated for beef!
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Thanks! I did find bone crushers, and they are really cool! But definitely made for large commercial locations and WAY out of our price range. here is a video. I thought the comments were hilarious! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqFeS12Rdik
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Austin Jonathon since it appears unlikely that you will get the Westin #32 pro grinder anytime soon, what will be the HP on the Walton #32 grinder and do you have an approximate date that it may be available. Really in a bind for a much larger grinder and do want to support Walton. Your site and customer service is second to none. I so appreciate your site and commitment to teach and educate.
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truckmountgirl I used to work for a slaughter house way back in the day and I seem to remember the company that hauled off our bones and other things would cook everything down prior to processing. They did not grind raw bones.
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Chef No, when they first went out of stock we were cautiously optimistic with their date but at this point I won’t even bother providing and expected date until they are either confirmed shipped to u or even better when they are here.
Get more help with your processing questions and learn more about processing meat by subscribing to our waltons.com youtube page at https://www.youtube.com/@waltonsinc
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Chef Canning Dry Cured Sausage Primo Grills Team Blue Sous Vide Power User Cast Ironreplied to Jonathon on last edited by
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Chef Canning Dry Cured Sausage Primo Grills Team Blue Sous Vide Power User Cast Ironreplied to Jonathon on last edited by
