Meat Grinder
 

I am looking to get one, but don't intend to break the bank doing so. Any suggestions/recommendations? Thanks for your input.

Cabela's 1 hp grinder works great. Just got it couple years ago and it grinds faster than you can feed it.

I just got one from cabelas, it was on sale for about 69 bucks, looks like a great machine.

sorry you didn't take the recomendation and spend the money to get the 1 hp model. well you will get to buy it the next time. The model you did buy is just not big enough except of small jobs, and won't last. You get what you pay for.

I haven't gotten one yet. The extent of my usage will be: grinding up venison on a "need burger meat" basis. I would take out some meat and let it thaw mostly and grind it then...a few pounds at a time at most.

Forget the electric ones
 

I have an old 1950s manual meat grinder that me and my boys still use to process our white tails. They're certainly not for everyone but they give you a good workout and I have the added benefit of two teenage boys I can draft into service :).

Jake
http://manualmeatgrinder.net

I have one of the $99.00 models from Cabelas. I kill one or two deer a year and I don't grind all the meat. It is perfect for what I need and I don't need a bigger unit. If I had hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat to grind a year I would have gone bigger. If you want to grind 10-20 pounds at a time these units are perfect. Ive been using mine for several years now and it still works/looks new.

The old grinder is ready for storage, waiting until the cherry crop comes in. (I grind the sour cherries when making preserves.)

I think my main grinder got knocked off to me for a buck at an auction. The board, belt, and cord have been replaced and the safety switch installed. All in all, I have about ten bucks invested.

This year we ran over 200 pounds of meat through this, 400 if you count that most was ground twice. Not bad for the old tool, made in America about 120 years ago and "electrified" much later.

This is a size 22 and we also have a smaller one, set up the same, that is size 12 (I think). It is older than the hills too but we don't use it unless we have more people helping with the butchering.

We put up about 60 pounds of burger, 25 pounds of breakfast sausage (loose), 25 pounds of Italian sausage (loose), 15 pounds of potato sausage (stuffed and tied into rings, frozen raw), 40 pounds of sticks (stuffed, smoked and baked till done), 50 pounds of summer sausage (stuffed, smoked, and baked to 155 deg+).

It gets to be work.

One change I made for both of my grinders is the addition of two washers to each of them. The washers are made out of the sides of gallon milk jugs, about 2 1/2" in diameter with a 3/4" hole. The washers are lubricated and go on the shafts of the augers before the grinders are assembled. The washers form a very thin bearing between the auger and the grinder body. More power goes to grinding meat and less to friction; also, there is no fluid leakage along the shaft of the grinder. This also keeps the shaft lubrication from washing away. There is a lot of pressure on these washers and they get silky smooth.

LEM 1/4 hp will work for that. 200.00, if you an afford more step up on size.
I have used comercial grinders for years but I needed something smaller for smaller jobs and bought the small LEM. I have done about 200lbs through it this year, the meat just has to be cut a little smaller. For stuffing sausage i use a LEM stuffer, crank type.