Grinding meat and making sausages

Grinding meat can be performed in either hand operated or motorized grinders. The majority of home sausagemakers are using hand operated grinders that have proven themselves for centuries.

There are basically 5 types of hand operated grinders : No 5, 8, 10, 22, 32 , the most common being 10, 22, 32 and the most popular # 10.

# 10 grinder - notice a rubber foot over the clamp to prevent marring kitchen table, # 32 grinder- 22 and 32 size grinders are heavy enough to rest on the table but they can be clamped to it as well. All of the above grinders employ a variety of accessories, such as grinder plates, knives, stuffing tubes, jerky attachments, and more.

All of the above work fine, but for grinders, the bigger the better. Bigger models have a larger throat, and they will grind the meat faster. However, they are also heavier, more expensive, and require more space to store.

The lean meat should be separated from the fat. As a rule, lean meat is ground coarsely, while fatty cuts are ground very finely. This way our sausage is lean-looking and the fat is hidden, although a sufficient amount still exists. It is much easier to grind cold meat taken directly out of the refrigerator (32° – 35° F), especially the fat, which is much easier to handle when partially frozen. The fat is usually ground through a plate with very small holes and it should be partially frozen before grinding it, otherwise you will get a smeared paste.

The locking ring on a grinder head should be hand tight and after a while, the meat will lubricate the grinder and the crank will begin to turn with ease.

The lean meat should be mixed with spices first, and the fat should be added at the last moment. Mixing meat by hand also raises its temperature and should be done as quickly as possible. It takes about 5 minutes to thoroughly mix 10 lbs of meat. The time is important because fat specks start to melt at 95° – 104° F (35° – 40° C). We want to prevent this smearing to keep the sausage tasting and looking great. Bear in mind that the grinder, whether electric or manual, generates heat and if it were washed in hot water, it should be cooled off before use. Otherwise we would heve meat smearing and the sausage will look greasy even when lean meat was used.

The knife must be sharp, otherwise the meat will smear. To avoid smearing, the meat we process should be kept at low temperatures 34° – 38° F , otherwise the sausage will look greasy inside, even if lean meat was used. The lean parts should be separated from the fatty pieces. Meat should always be chilled between 32° – 35° F for a clean cut. Since refrigerator temperatures are roughly 38°-40° F, we should place the meat in a freezer for about 30 min just before grinding.

In domestic conditions, we could choose to cut the meat either during the early hours of the morning, or during late evenings when temperatures are not higher than 70° F. After we are done cutting the meat, we should separate it into different groups : lean, semi – fat and fat. Then they should be placed back into the refrigerator.

After use, the hand grinder should be washed thoroughly in hot water and dish washing liquid. It should then be rinsed with cold water and lubricated with food grade grease. All meat grinders turn in a clockwise direction If you can’t manually untwist the locking ring (it happens all the time), tap it loose with a hammer, but use a piece of wood. Those rings are made of cast iron and will crack easily when hit with metal. There is a spanner wrench designed for locking ring removal.

There are numerous electrical grinders, or processors with grinding head attachments that all work fine. Keep in mind that the meat will have to be stuffed into casings, so the meats will have to be adapted to accept tubes of different sizes. Otherwise, you will need a separate sausage stuffer.

The question may arise, why do we grind different grades of meat through different plates? It will be much easier to use 3/8" plate for everything. There are many reasons for it:

1. You could do just that if you had only high grade meats let’s say pork class I (ham) and pork class II (butt). With such fine meats you would not get any pieces of bone, gristle and sinews that would stuck between your teeth. On the other hand we are left with meat scraps of lower classes that we would not be able to eat if they were not finely ground.

2. The second reason is that we want to retain meat juices and water inside the meat and those poor meat grades with a lot of gristle and sinews are loaded with collagen that helps to do just that. The better grind we can obtain the stronger binding power meat develops and this is where a bowl cutter starts to shine. A grinder, manual or electrical, cuts meat and pushes meat through plate holes, cutting meat but also mechanically breaking it at the same time. A bowl cutter cuts cleanly without doing mechanical damage to a piece of meat’s structure. It develops a lot of heat so ice or cold water are added to cool down the meat and rotating knives. That allows it to emulsify meat into a consistency of fine paste that is able to trap all this ice and water with fat and hold it inside. All scraps of meat with fat, gristle and sinews have become a paste now, the product will be juicier and the manufacturer will make more money by charging a customer for this trapped ice and water. This is exactly how we make products like hot dogs, frankfurters, bologna or liver sausages.

3. The third reason is that a lot of fat is being used to make sausages today and it will be visible with a naked eye when we slice the sausage. By grinding fat through a fine plate the fat will bind with meat and will not be noticeable. Now you understand that there is not any rigid, fixed rule in regard to grinder plates and that the plate selection depends greatly on the type of a sausage that you decide to make.


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