Well, you definitely want to stay away from a manual grinder. I cut my teeth grinding meat on a manual one. When my dad finally bought an electric, I took the manual and buried it. Seriously. Ironically, later in life I went and bought a manual grinder again for making chum for offshore fishing.
I have the one on the front of the LEM website. For guys like us that are doing a few animals a year, it works well. And I push mine to the limit. I guess with grinders, bigger is better. The bigger the motor, the faster it can grind
I am willing to bet mine has had well over 2000 pounds of meat thru it. That is probably a very low estimation. Only thing I ever replaced was the cutting blade
leave the Mexican style grinders( El manual) in Mexico . Also don't cheap out. iI you hunt you use it. Even if you like chicken or turkey salad it will make it super fast and easy. I take my old gobblers and bake them then debone and grind it add mayo onion seasoning and celery. I also have a cuber to make cube steaks. You can add sausage stuffer tube and make sausage.
It easier especially when you get you hunting Buddie involved to help. 3 of us ground mixed badged and tagged 50 lbs of breakfast bulk sausage in less than one hour and one case of beer. I bought 1.5 hp grinder. new approx 700.
My biggest problem with grinding my own wild game is the amount of sinew and connective tissue that clogs the plates. How do you prevent that? Last attempt at grinding a deer shoulder didn't work out so well. I froze the meat and then let it thaw some and cut out all the silver skin that I could. After running 3 or 4 pieces, the plate was clogged and didn't push anymore meat out until I cleared it. That was using the largest diameter plate too. Any ideas on how to prevent this?
This is the grinder that I have...
http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200451267_200451267
Kortsman, Years ago we experienced the same problem but we were using a small sized hand grinder and just like you described it would ball up with silver skin and just not work till it was disassembled and cleaned. Go again and clean it again, that got old right quick! I ended up getting a #32 size hand grinder and didn't have that problem any more. I ended up powering my #32 with an electric motor, using a jack shaft to slow it down to 80 rpms. The whole mess sits on a little oak table with casters, making it easy to bring into the kitchen. Unbolt the grinder and in its' place put on the vertical 15# stuffer and finish making the sausage. When you take it apart to change to a smaller plate you will still find silver skin and sinews wrapped around the blades but it doesn't seem to slow it down a bit. At the botttom right hand side of Northern Tool page you referenced is a grinder very similar to the one I am using. I think bigger is better when it comes to grinding meat but I'm an ol' tightwad, so I haven't spent the money for a commercial grade grinder. Love to have one, but we only process 4 or 5 deer a year and that doesn't justify a grinder costing hundreds more. Treefarmer
Good thread with lots of info. When we grind deer I try to watch the marbling more than any thing but I guessing its around 10% fat to deer. Nice stash luv2hunt.
