Meat Grinder Advice

[tylerduce]

I'm looking into purchasing a new meat grinder. What do you all have? What should a guy avoid? What features do you find useful? Anyone care to share their reviews on specific brands such as Valley Sportsman, LEM, Cabelas Carnivore, Weston, etc.

Cheers!

[srthomas75]

following myself as I'm looking at getting one as well.

[Arctic Lake]

How much money do you want to spend ? You can’t go wrong buying a well known Meat industry manufactured one like Biro , Berkel , Butcher Boy , . You could look at restaurant auctions if not buying new .
I think others will chime in on the top end Cabelas models
Arctic Lake

[tylerduce]

Good question Arctic Lake. I'm ok with spending more up front to get a quality grinder. Its the same with anything (especially footwear)....buy once, cry once.

[IslandWanderer]

We've got a 1 hp Weston. I bought it at Canadian Tire for around 600 plus tax.

I've ground 6 deer so far. Worked great. I figure I broke even money wise after deer 5. I hear lots of good things about the LEM Big Bite line of grinders. In hind sight I'd have bought an LEM instead just because of the reviews. Our Weston does work well though.

[MDR]

I have a Cabelas pro series. Bought 6 years ago approximately. It has ground quite a few animals over the years. Hasn't let me down yet. I would buy again 100%. I'm sure the carnivore series are great, but mine will grind meat faster than I can cut it up and at half the cost. As with any grinder, don't feed it giant tendons.

The sausage stuffer attachment works well enough...just.

[ccrcc]

+1 on the pro series DC. ground up more than its fair share of critters. and packs a punch for it's size so it's easy to store.
i thought about the commercial grade ones as well but i just dont use it enough to justify the cost.

[MRP]

When I was young and did real work for a living I had a #32 hand crank. The wife fed it I cranked, put a couple of 100lbs of meat through and never thought anything of it. Got older and work got softer. 20ish years ago l purchased a #32 with the belt drive wheel on it and a 3/4hp motor. Probably put a couple of thousand pounds of meat through it. It’s heavy, ugly but fast. Was over helping a friend with some fancy $1000 thing that has never worked right since he got it. The only thing with mine it the throat is big enough to put your hand in. So I cut a hole in a small tub to go on top and made a push paddle to poke the meat in with.

#32 will last for ever. But I know of some that bought the cheaper #32 hand crank and tried to motorize it, Don’t. The #32 that comes with a drive wheel has real bearings the hand crank has nothing or just a thin nylon bushing.

[blackhawk19]

If you want to do the job fast then go with Biro, Berkel , Hobart . If time isn't a factor then go with weston , cabelas
As Arctic has said there are quite a few industrial ones out there . Just remember the industrial will be single phase

[upperleftcoaster]

Get the most HP you can afford, the smaller ones work but take for ever to grind. I use an old commercial Biro. It takes longer to clean than to grind all the meat and sausage