vacuum sealer and meat grinders
10-01-2010, 12:44 PM
#1
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Rockingham NC
Posts: 203
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.
10-01-2010, 01:26 PM
#2
Fork Horn
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: stafford virginia
Posts: 338
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.
10-01-2010, 03:43 PM
#3
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 220
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
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
10-01-2010, 03:47 PM
#4
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 220
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.
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.
10-01-2010, 05:41 PM
#6
Typical Buck
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Indiana
Posts: 585
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.
10-01-2010, 05:57 PM
#7
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Rockingham NC
Posts: 203
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.
10-02-2010, 06:58 AM
#8
Fork Horn
Join Date: Dec 2006
Posts: 220
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...
10-02-2010, 07:11 AM
#9
Banned
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 220
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...
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.
10-02-2010, 07:12 AM
#10
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location:
Posts: 1,837
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.