vacuum sealer and meat grinders
 

I'm going to process my own deer this year and was wondering if anyone can tell me the best sealer and grinder for the money. I have heard some complaints about vacuum sealers so I was wondering if any one had any suggestions from experience? Thanks.

I have been doing my own processing for years. I use a foodsaver and have been happy with it I think I got about five years on this one and no problem yet. as for meat grinders I got what I could afford at the time a Krups it does all right (so far 100?lbs of meat and still grinder) but there are bigger ones out there. I really like using the foodsaver it is much faster then freezer paper.

My brother bought me a Food Saver machine about 5 years ago.
If you are going to eat the meat right away, butcher paper or Zip Lock bags are your best bet. If you are going to make sausage - the Food Saver is the only way to go. 10 months later, and the meat still looks like I just put it in the bag.

I will give you two pieces of advice when It comes to buying a grinder.

If at any time in your lifetime you come across a deal where you can buy a industrial commercial grinder - DO IT!

There is two things you need to understand when it comes to buying a grinder. You want to buy the grinder with the largest throat and a grinder with the slowest possible motor speed.
If a grinder runs too fast, the meat has a tendency to jam and gum up when you feed fat into the grinder.
20 years ago, I bought a hand grinder - Porkert and I had a friend of mine machine the auger to accept a large pulley. I then bought a electric motor with the slowest possible speed and put the smallest pulley that I could buy.
http://www.sausagesource.com/catalog/prk-22grnd.html

The bigger the throat, the bigger the piece of meat that you can feed into the grinder. I de-bone all my deer meat and then I buy pork butts and pork fat and then I mix the meats in the grinder as I am grinding. If you try to grind pork fat - the grinder jams up and then you have to tear it all apart. Deer meat will go through the grinder almost as fast as you can stick it in. Pork Butts goes through pretty easy also - but to keep the grinder clean, I just mix it up from each container until I have most of it all ground once and I save about 5 lbs out of a 20 lbs batch for the second time I grind it to make sure that the ground meat doesn't gum up the grinder.

My neighbors kids bought him a meat grinder from Cabella's last year.
It has a built in electric motor and is a little harder to clean, but it did a ok job, but it was not any faster then the old manual grinder that I had converted to electric motor and the throat was not any bigger. It might have seemed that it did a little better job, but not anything that I could see.

This was the model that they had bought him and I think I gave him 5 lbs of sausage for letting me use it.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Home-...meat%20grinder

The Number 32 manual grinder from Cabella's would be a better grinder in my honest opinion if it was the only place you had to buy one.
http://www.cabelas.com/product/Home-...meat%20grinder

Read this
http://www.electricmeatgrindersinfo.com/

Always start out with the most course grinding plate and then you can decide if you want to grind it finer. A small capacity grinder will not do a very good job for very long if you like your meat ground twice or into mince meat. You will work yourself to death with a little grinder.

I bought the wife a KitchenAid mixer and then bought me the grinder attachment, works great...

I too have a food saver and have had no problems with it. If you are like me and only process one or two deer a year I would say stick with a little cheaper grinder. I have one of the 100 grinders from Gander Mt and it works fine. If I was going through hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat a year I would go industrial. Let us know how many deer you plan to or typically process in a year.

Thanks for the replies. This will be my first time doing this myself so I just wanted some input before I bought anything. You're right flyinlowe, I'll probably only process 1 or 2 a year. Thanks again for the replies I hope that everyones seasons goes well.

I've been processing my own for the last few years. I ended up getting a #32 grinder from Northern Tool that came with a pulley, and found a 3/4 hp motor on craigslist for 35 bucks. All in all have about 150 bucks in one heck of a grinder. Takes me longer to clean it than to grind up two deer...

Just a little question for you Rynigner - if you had to do it all over again, would you buy a cheap grinder from Cabella's for $100 or would you buy the grinder and motor set up that you presently own.

The reason why I say this is because I grind my meat twice and I make lot's of sausage and it takes me a couple of hours to grind 40 - 50 lbs of meat by myself.

Last year I shot what I would consider to be one of the largest bucks that I had ever shot - 175 lbs field dressed, and it took me about 8 hours to debone it by myself. Lets say a couple more hours to cut all my pork and pork fat up into cubes and then 3 or 4 more hours to grind everything. That would be about 16 hours of work into one deer. That does not include my sausage stuffer, where I put 20 lbs of meat into hog casings.

A person might grind a slew of meat, if all they are going to do is make ground meat, but if you are going to make sausage - you need to have the best equipment you can get in my opinion - what is your opinion?

If all a person is going to grind up, is what ever is left over from the front legs and the hind legs after you cut the steaks and chops, then a little grinder isn't so bad I guess. You might have 15 lbs of meat of left over meat off of one deer, if you shot a really big deer.

Buy the more powerful vacuum sealer if you can. I have a food saver and although it has done a good job for me a more powerful one would be better and save some time. I agree too with buying a commercial grinder if you ever get a chance at a deal on one.

When the time comes, when I get my remodel job done on my house, this is the processing tool that I am going to buy.

http://www.amazon.com/Meat-Butcher-G.../dp/B000KPS5IE

I would do what I did everyday of the week versus buying an electric one.... With the gearing the shaft speed is about 70rpm's, and it'll grind up anything that can be dropped in it. No extra trimming or slicing is needed because of the grinder. I plan on getting some scrap metal and reworking the base so it's easier to carry and disassemble for cleaning. Other electric grinders that claim to be 3/4hp, the whole case and all are smaller than what my motor is alone. So I have more faith in my motor versus theirs.

FWIW, some of my hunting buddies have electric grinders ranging from kitchen aide accessory, gander mountain bought, and cabelas bought. One other buddy has a similar setup to mine. Whenever we have a group hunt, they always wanna know if one of us will be bringing our grinder. For the $150 I've got invested in it, I would put it up against anything store bought. It's just an animal, and grinds the meat very well w/o any jamming issues.

For safety reasons, My brother and I are the only ones allowed to operate my grinder. I don't loan it out either. Being belt driven, and the throat being large enough for your arm to fit in, someone not being careful could lose a hand or arm.

It was a fun project to put together, and a great purchase!

I got this grinder on sale at Gander Mountain for $79.99 a couple years ago. Saved $100 of list price.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modper...ils_box_holder

I've ground over 200lbs of meat in the last 2 years with it and it hasn't ever clogged. I didn't know you weren't supposed to be able to grind pork fat though, because I've been doing that when I make my sausage adding pork fat from the store with wild pork when I grind it. It does grind a little slower on pork fat, but not bad.

On the vaccumm sealer, I bought the medium priced one ($100 at Walmart) and it works fine. The only drawback that it has is if you are sealing to quickly it overheats and you have to wait a little while before you can start sealing again. It only happens if I you are making a bunch of bags up all at the same time or something like that and I don't think it would be worth the extra $ just so it would seal quicker.

depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to accomplish. last year i went to bass pro and bought a #8 LEM grinder, and the tenderizer attatchment, among other stuff. cost me $950, but when you figure it cost me 4-500 a year for processing, and i know that i'm getting my deer back and whats in it.
look up LEM, they have the equipment as well as spices and supplies.

This is the company where I buy my spices for making sausage.

http://www.conyeagerspice.com/about_us.htm

They are the premier distributor for spices in my area and all the grocery stores and butcher shops buys their products for their own home made sausage that they sell.

I bought a lot of "home" grinders that failed pretty quickly. Then I bought one from LEM (www.lemproducts.com). Lots of deer and hogs through that machine w/o a hiccup. It's not cheap but will save money in the long run (not to mention time!)

I have best luck vacuum packing ground bulk and patties if they are first frozen then vacuum packed.

Consider getting a cuber too. Lots you can do w cube steaks from "lesser cuts".

Good luck processing you own. Hope you get LOT'S of practice this year