Meat Grinders for deer

[rbhunter]

I am looking at starting to butcher my own deer and I am wondering about meat grinders. I would like to get one in which I can grind and also stuff sausage casings. I would like one that will last but would also like to keep the price reasonable.

I would like comments on how big of a unit I should get or what to look for in a meat grinder and possible problems to watch out for. I have been reading reviews on some websites of products and seems some have problems with fine grind after the course grind and others have had trouble with meat backing up into the gears when stuffing sausage. What is minimum and what would be a good compromise. Maybe what websites should I check out for purchasing.

Randy

[farmerdoug]

Rbhunter,

I just purchased a 11/2 hp grinder from Cabela's at the begining of the month.  I will be trying it later this week.  It comes with the stuffing tubes also.  It looks like a well built grinder but have not used it yet. 

Try watching for used commercial grinder for sale but check them out carefully because often they are well used.  I finally got tired of looking and went new.

Farmerdoug

[rbhunter]

I would like to hear from anyone who has the Cabelas 1/2 hp grinder or the LEM .35 hp also. These are the two I am most interested in although Cabelas pro 450 is something for me to consider as I am trying to keep the price reasonable. The pro 450 is made by Waring. I am open to other brands also just looking at trying to keep cost down while getting something that I can depend on. Probably a couple of deer a year (I hope) although possibly more as my son and wife are also hunting. Still having some trouble figuring deer out on public ground. Passed on a doe as I was not sure if she was big enough to justify the processing fee at a locker. Now that I am processing my own that will not be a problem.

[beenthere]

rbhunter
What is your processing fee for a deer?  Mine is $80, get the meat back boned and trimmed...

Just curious what others must pay.  For 36 years, I processed my own, but found this to be convenient enough that I did it again this year. 

A year ago, there was some good discussion on grinders, and sausage making. Prolly a search with those words will bring them to light. 

[rbhunter]

Thanks for the search tip I will try that.

I was going to take my deer to a meat processor but the guys at work were talking that it was $100.00. Before it cost me $65.00 to have a deer processed. The deer I am seeing here in central missouri are not that big and it would equal about $2.00 a lb of meat and that is not considering if I were to have any of it made into summer sausage. I have an electric smoker and would like to try making my own sausage ( I will have to do a search on here on recipes and info). I will have a lot to learn.

[LeeB]

Lindy bought a remanufactured LEM, .35hp for about $175 Ithink. It does a fantastic job. I've run several 100 #'s of meat through it so far with out nary a hiccup. It comes with 2 sizes of grinding plate and another for sausage stuffing with several sizes of stuffing tubes. I just use the larger grinding plate and gring twice before stuffing. I find the smaller plate too fine for sausage, but it works great for groung beef and such. What ever you get, try grinding some pork for pork burgers. I yummy change from hamburgers. Lindy made some venison summer sausage with it this time while I was off at workand i had that with cheese and crackers for supper. Very good. Stuffed it in the casing quite well. I've put up about 150lbs of links so far. A little learning curve but not bad.

[Sunfield Hardwood]

I have the half horse grinder from cabela's and it works great, I had a smaller plastic [mostly] unit before and this is a BIG improvement. I've tried many different recipes and seasoning mixes but have settled on the premixed seasoning from lem products, we've made the summer sausage, brats, fresh breakfast sausage, jerky and snack sticks, but in my opinion you need to add at least 20% pork fat, or a third pork shoulder if you can't find pure pork fat. good luck ,Bill