If you want to have safe contamination free better flavored and nice texture of meat, then manual meat grinders are the best one to choose for you. You may think of buying pre packaged ground meat as it can reduce your processing hassles but you can’t be sure of whether there is a chance of contamination or not. Even that can contain meat from non-edible animals, who knows!
But if you have your own meat grinder, you can ensure the safety as well as can maintain the texture of the meat. For that having knowledge for using a manual meat grinder is necessary and definitely knowing basic cleaning tips are also very important.
So I am going to bring up a brief discussion on using and cleaning tips so that you can know about the best meat grinders for home uses.
Uses for the meat grinder
If you are asking yourself why should you grind your own meat, then I think from the following causes you will find your answer –
- First of all, you can ensure the safety of the meat. Prepackaged ground meat has the meat of various parts of animals. Even, how can you be so sure about that there doesn’t have other animals’ meat? But if you can grind at home so easily why to put the risk! The contamination will be zero.
- The second one is you can confirm the better flavor of the meat. If you buy ground meat from the supermarket, you won’t know anything but only the fat content of the meat. But with a hand meat grinder, you can control the cuts to grind. It will provide you tastier patties and sausages or anything you want to make.
- If you grind the meat yourself, you can ensure the improving moisture level and texture. Pre Ground meat slowly gets compressed and oxidized.
How to use a hand crank meat grinder?
The step by step procedure of using manual meat grinders is given below:
Step 1:
Keep both meat grinder and meat cold. Because fat can leak out from warm meat. You can keep the meat chilled in a bowl full of ice. Store the grinder in the freezer for one hour.
Step 2:
Smearing can give you chewed up the texture. So trimming is better to prevent it. Trim the meat well.
Step 3:
Then keep the meat in the grinder. It’ll be coming out in discrete little pieces and you’ll be able to identify the meat and fat. But if it coming out wet and on mass then fix the grinder to the reverse function. Otherwise, clean the blade of the machine and start grinding again.
Step 4:
A dull blade can smear the meat so always keep the blade sharp. You can buy replacement blades as a safety measure.
Step 5:
Wash the plate by your hand. It will be better to use hot soapy water for washing the plate. Then dry it with a clean towel.
Step 6:
If you need finer grind meat, then grind it several times.
How to clean manual meat grinders?
- As meat has fat, there will be oil and grease through your grinder. Let not dry these on the grinder and wash it immediately after use. It is better to wash the grinder up after each use.
- Before disassembling of your grinder, feed it two or three bread slices as like as you did with the meat. The bread slices absorb the oil and grease of the meat that was left on the grinder. It will also push out stray bits.
- Then disassemble the parts of the grinder. A grinder consists of a few parts – a pusher, feed tube, hopper, a screw, a blade, a plate, and cover for both the blade and plate.
- Fill a bucket with warm water. Add some detergent there and then disassemble the parts of the grinder. Keep them into the for about one hour so that oil and grease will loosen up.
- Clean the cover and blade with a sponge. The blade is sharp and it can cause harm so when scrubbing it, be careful. With a brush clean the hopper, feed tube and plate holes. Then rinse every part with water.
- Wipe the parts with a dry and clean towel and then lay them on a wire rack. Let them air dry so that you can avoid rust and oxidation.
- You can spray mineral oil on the metal parts of the grinder to prevent rust.
- Place each part in its own plastic bag. You can a handful of rice as the rice absorbs moisture.
- Keep the grinder in the freezer because it is best when the grinder is in cold.
Troubleshooting of meat grinder
You may face some meat grinder problems when using one. Here are some problems that you may face with solutions –
- Sometimes the head of the grinder is unable to grind meat evenly. You can rectify the problem by attaching the head. Make sure you attach the head tightly.
- As grinder’s teeth or blade are in continuous use when working with it, so you need to be aware of the sharpness. If possible make it sharp or you can buy a new one.
- Friction problem is a major cause of your dissatisfaction. You can eliminate it by grinding frozen meat.
Conclusion
Manual meat grinders are the best meat grinders for home use if you can use and clean it properly. It makes your job much easy in grinding meat. If you have a manual meat grinder, then you don’t need to go out and look for prepackaged ground meat.
Thus, you can make sure the safety and health of your family members. Again you can choose how much ground you want the meat to be. So everything is under your control. After going through the article, you have come to know almost all the uses of a grinding machine and if any problem arises you can now solve it by yourself!
