Finch

I used to have the hook up when it came to having my deer meat processed. My dad's best friend did it on the side during season for extra cash and would always do it for us, free of charge. Well, between him passing away and me moving out of the area I have to rely on other means now.

I'm not too fond of paying someone $50-60 per deer so I want to do this myself. I've been looking specifically at the Cabela's line of meat grinders. They seem to be very well made. Does anyone on here have any one of these products? I'm unsure about what HP to go with? I was thinking 1HP because it has both forward/reverse. Is the reverse feature something that should helpmake my decision?

JNTURK

$50 or $60...you should be so lucky, cheapest in CA around my area is $100 off the top!!!

i have no experience with the cabelas grinders, but my wife has a kitchen aide mixer and i purchased the grinder attachment and it is doing well so far. have had 6 deer through it in 3 years and it have performed very well... to be honest i am sure any old grinder will work ok, the key is to having good clean cut small pieces of meat to be ground up.

Finch

Funny you should mention that. A friend here at work just told me about them. I'll have to give them a peak. Thanks

bawanajim

I had one maybe five years ago, burnt it up the first time I used. But that unit in the picture doesn't look like the one I had.

Mine now is a gear motor bolted to a board coupled to an old hand crack grinder thatI took the handle off of,way cheaper and works great.

TEmbry

weve been known to use a drill rather than a hand crank on the manual grinders...sure does make it alot quicker work!

YooperMike

I use my Kitchen-Aid mixer, and it works awesome. I've done lots of grinding with it, deer and other stuff, pork/beef/chicken. All without any hiccups. Plus, you can mix sausage and stuff without needing another machine. Definetely worth a look.

Critr-Gitr

Never used the Cabelas line. There are lots of good links/information here:

http://www.sausagemania.com/links.html

When I went to buy mine I researched it pretty hard. I am a tightwad and don't want to let go of money just for the heck of it. Lots of the grinders out there you have to be careful of because they have plastic gears in them. The one I bought is actually Chinese, but it came very highly reccommended from several of the sausage sites. It has a higher wattage motor than most of the grinders in its class, and it has all metal gears. It has run well for me and done everything I have asked of it, it is supposedly a very durable machine. I paid $185 for it, and it is a #12 size. Tasin 108I believe is what it is. If you have $400-$500 bucks there are better machines, but quite frankly, I don't use one THAT much. I do 2-3 deer a year, and it grinds plenty fast for me.

live2Draw

Kitchen aids are amazing.
but they dont come in the 50-60 dollar range
For the basic small Kitchen aide classic you will spend about 200 dollars..
the food grinder is another 64
then another 13 for the sausage attachment.
I have a kitchen aide pro stand mixer
around 400 dollars, a little more balls.

Finch

Well, I am getting married in December so I'm sure we could register for the Kitchen Aid mixer along with a few attachments. Only problem is that I may need it before then.

So this is the KA grinder everyone is raving about?

NavyDeerHunter

You may want to look at LEM products. I got one from them last year and like it a lot. Mine is "refurbished" and cost a lot less than their new ones, but it works really well for me. LEM has all the grinding products that you need.