Meat Grinder Suggestions

[ArnieM]

I got my LEM 5 pound grinder from http://meatprocessingproducts.com/electric-meat-grinders.html.  Use coupon code MPP2010 at checkout and get 10 bucks off.

It works really well.  As others have said, make the meat is about half-frozen.  I cut the meat into strips and just drop them into the chute; no pusher required.  They just get sucked in.  I'm very pleased with it.

[Seminole]

Follow Kevin's and NePaSmoker advice - trim meats very well. You can throw all those tough trimmings into a small food processor and emulsify them. It also depends on what kind of sausage texture you are after.

[RAF128]

I've got a 1/2 hp L.E.M. and it grinds meat with no problem.    Triming the meat clear of sinew and silver skin is important.    I grind with a coarse blade first and then use a finer blade and it still gets stuff stuck in it.    Every thing in the grinder has to be sharp.   Originally I thought on the blade could be sharpened.   I learned that the plate can be sharpened too.   Each hole should have a clean sharp edge.  That has to be left to professionals with the right equipment.

[NePaSmoKer]

I've got a 1/2 hp L.E.M. and it grinds meat with no problem.    Triming the meat clear of sinew and silver skin is important.    I grind with a coarse blade first and then use a finer blade and it still gets stuff stuck in it.    Every thing in the grinder has to be sharp.   Originally I thought on the blade could be sharpened.   I learned that the plate can be sharpened too.   Each hole should have a clean sharp edge.  That has to be left to professionals with the right equipment.

I aint never heard of the plate being sharpened? ..................................

[ArnieM]

I aint never heard of the plate being sharpened? ..................................

Me either.  It can be flipped until it gets kinda dull on both sides.  Sharpening the plate would probably require a precision surface grinder taking about 0.005 inches off each side.  It's probably less expensive just to get a new plate.

[Cleaver]

you can lap the disc by using a straight tempered glass plate and lapping compound..   cover glass 6"-8" square area.  put the cutting side down, making figure 8's in different directions.  this will eventually make the cutting surface so cose to being perfectly straight and if the blades are straight, it will cut like a dream.  As for blades you need to take them to a butcher supply shop, and see who they know will shappen.

[RAF128]

Years ago I took my plates to a machine shop at the local university.    I know the fellow that runs the shop.   They build anything and everything the Engineer design.  He looked at the plates and said they're dull.   They had a special machine and he laid them on the bed and the machine did the rest.   I don't want to guess what and how much he took off each side.   I took the plates home, put them in an old grinder and it worked to beat the band.   I have a neighbor who was a butcher before he retired and had is own store.   He told me there are few place that can sharpen them and it's quicker to buy new ones but he too had it done.

[NePaSmoKer]

Well

I'm glad i do all my own sharpening then  ;D

[porterdriver]

I've been grinding meats for years and have a #22 electric grinder (1100 watts /1 phase) from "The Sausage Maker" and have found very few animals that it has problems with.  A lot of my buds tried to do grinding-on-the-cheap and usually pay for it a significant increase in pregrinding labor. 
There are some issues that small grinders impart to grinding:

First is heat.  Since it is a small motor it will labor harder to generate enough grinding force, that is transmitted up the shaft to the grinding unit.  With a suitably sized unit, the meat will process so quickly that heat will not build up in the motor and not be transmitted to the grinder and therefore to the meat.  We never have to partially freeze meat or use sports wraps, simply take it out of the refer and grind (or grind/stuff simultaneously) and return to refer.

Second, a lot of the secondary work is not necessary.  Surgical grade trimming is replaced with a quick pass through the meat looking for bone, veins, large chunks of fat, etc.  There is no need to double grind (coarse / fine). Piece size is not critical, if it'll fit into the feed tube, it'll grind it.

Third, we have process many hundreds of pounds of meat through this grinder over the years and the cutters/plates are as sharp as the day they came out of the box.  Butcher told me that if the pressure of the meat on the grinding assembly is right, then the unit becomes almost self-sharpening.  Anyway, never heard of having to sharpen cutters and plates.

Of course that is just my opinion, I could be wrong.


I firmly believe that this (like the Bradley) is something that you not go cheap on.  Get the right tool for the job from the get-go, you will be happy that you did.

[goblism]

I have been using one of those #22's for a while now, goes through 100lbs of meat in 15min

Good (German) sharp plates are hard to beat, simply amazing the crap that LEM sends along as the standard plates.

Use what comes with the cabelas until you figure out that your going to keep doing this, then either upgrade the machine or order a good set of plates.  

My uncle use to be a butcher, he said that they would get like 4 sets of plates for their grinder and send them out in sets of 2 when they got dull.

[unclebuck]

Sharpening the plate is called "lapping".  Any machine shop has a lapping table and will do it for you quite reasonably.  If you do both the knife and the plate, you will have the face of the plate mated with the cutting edges of the knife for superior performance.