What do you use to grind your game?

[429421Cowboy]

In the interest of getting a bit more conversation here I'll offer up another thread.
What do you guys use to grind up your critters? I have an LEM #8 grinder i traded somebody for, it works great for a few deer or an elk, we also use it for stuffing sausages and grinding hogs and beef as well. It is about a $300 machine, it works well but if I had $700 i would have a #32 grinder instead, once you use one there is no compare!
The beauty of slaughtering your own hogs is we get to keep our own trim vaccuum sealed in 10lb chubs for mixing with the buger or sausage. We also have a 6' high aluminum homemade gas smoker that we can smoke sausges, hams, anything up to a whole hog in. We cut and grind on a dedicated meat cutting table we made out of endgrain hardwood about waist high that is 4'x7' which gives us plenty of room for several guys to cut and work. Elk, hogs or beeves get hung on the tractor and quartered (beeves get halved, then quartered) and brought in the room and hung as quarters, deer get skinned in the other room and torched off before the are brought in and hung to help eleminate hair in the final cutting room. Burger/breakfast sausage gets stuffed in burger tubes and sealed with hog rings, then the roasts are paper wrapped, steaks, chops, bacon and other cuts get vaccuum sealed or parer wrapped depending. If i get a chance to take pic's i'll post them if there is interest.

[472x1B/A]

Please with the pictures. Any help would be appreciated. We are planning to help with cutting up a steer in a few days and need some help/instructions. I have done 100's of rabbits, coons, squirrels, quail, pigeons, a few deer and hogs, but nothing as big as a full beef. Thanks.

[HamGunner]

Certainly not as large an operation as you fellas are doing, but we certainly enjoy working up our own deer and sausages. I grew up on a farm and we raised our own for butchering, but until the last 10-15 years, the farm beef that we ate was proceeded at a near by processor. Those labor costs are now quite expensive, so we are doing a lot more of our own meats. So far, just a #10 Enterprise hand grinder, 30 lb. hand mixer from LEM, and a small sausage stuffer, but we will be adding to our set up along the way and hopefully be able to process a whole hog if I manage to kill one next time out and perhaps a young beef.

This picture is of my Son's deer that we processed for him this year.

[MT Gianni]

Friend has a grinder he purchased @ auction. It is from around 1940 and weighs over 300 lbs with cast iron legs and table. It has a 1 1/2 hp motor and puts out around 10-12 lbs a minute. No sausage stuffer it is mixed then put into a sandwich bag for a 1 1/4 lb measure then wrapped and labeled.

[429421Cowboy]

472, I have learned from a lifetime in the meat industry, being in a slaughterhouse since i could walk, but when i started judging meat for 4-H as part of the state meats ID team, Texas A&M's MeatScience.org (I think?) was where i really got all my info, there is close to a ton and a half of A&M Youtube vids about meat cuts that should help a bunch plus i am sure there are many other good meat processing vids on Youtube! For beef size critters you really need a way to split them down the middle (halve them) and a bandsaw if you want to tear the chuck apart into pot roasts and make your middle meats into rib steaks, top loins (New York Strips), T-bones and Porterhouses. Otherwise it is pretty much bone out like a deer and make steaks and burger. We haven't done a beef in a few years since we sell the beef locally it has to be inspected at a plant, so an old burger bull or cow would be about the only thing we'd do, beef wise. Grandpa used to use a chainsaw to split them in half, i suspect a rip blade reciprocating saw with a new clean blade would work better but splitting them is a tallent in itself. Also, the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) organisation would likely send you poster sized charts of beef "primals" and the cuts they break down into. Best of luck on the beef, if you have never slaughtered one before, remember to draw an X from ear to the opposite eye on both sides, then place your shot at the X intercection, it will be a bit higher than you think, and have somebody standing by with a sharp knife to bleed immediately. If you already know all this i am sorry, just trying to be as helpful as possible!
Ham, We used to use a crank grinder, thank god i was able to trade for an electric, we now use it to stuff too, those hand stuffers take a real man to operate! Last week making sausages a neighbor brought over his LEM crank stuffer, %$#& think thats the next thing we'll have to spring for, the grinder stuffs ok with the stuffing plate but that crank deal is FAST. That is some very professional looking sausage you made!
MT, sounds like my uncles, they made one 20 years ago out of a #32 hand crank grinder and a 1hp motor they got off an old clay pidgeon trap from the skeet club, put it on a rolling welding cart, it has amazing torque and man will it suck down the meat! Still going strong, made alot of burger and sausage with that thing and still do from time to time!

[Lloyd Smale]

I looked pretty closely when i bought my last grinder. I narrowed it down to a #32 weston and lem and chose the weston in the end just because I got it about a 100 bucks cheaper then the lem. Both are great units though. I also have a 5 lb weston verticle stuffer and a 30lb manual mixer. Both need upgrading as there just to small. Id love to go with a 50lb mixer with a power head on it and a 25 lb stuffer. bottom line though is a guy who only processes one of two deer a year can get by with the 5 lb stuffer, a 20lb mixer and a good quality #8 grinder.

[MT Gianni]

429421, Splitting an animal is an art. i knew a retired vet that could split an Elk with an axe and always hit vertebrae but that is a talent that is disappearing fast.

[429421Cowboy]

I'll say! Not many can do it right with a verticle bandsaw, i can't imagine how hard it must be with an ax!
The butcher that taught me showed me a bunch of black and white clips from the old days of the Chicago meat plants, one of them showed a guy with a two handed meat cleaver that was probably 3 feet long that he was using to split hogs on the rail, as they moved down the disassembly line, it took him about four or five good whacks to halve them perfectly down the spine, and this was while they were moving! That took a heck of an aim to not ruin a high value loin by hitting too far off to one side.

[RoyEllis]

I'm kinda out-dated I guess....I still use my Grandfather's #333 Universal hand crank cast iron grinder. Man, when I was a kid we put a bunch of meat thru that grinder & I don't know how much it did while my Dad was growing up. But it still works & never fails to remind me of great times with family.

[472x1B/A]

429421Cowboy!!! WOW!!! I have no idea what I've gotten myself into. Went to this guys house this morning as the steer was there and ready. Now I have been told by this fella that he/they have done more than 30 hogs and at least 100 deer over the last 'few' years. You would have been laughing your guts out at this.

The steer started out at 1000lbs., then went to 1200, then when I get there it is 1400lbs. Takes 5 shots (.45acp) to put it down. Pulled out of the trailer and slited/bled. Pulled into the machine shed and hoisted up with a chain hoist. A 2x8 rafter holding this whole beef up. Got it skinned, head off, legs off, gutted, split (sawsall), and quarted and took 5&1/2 hrs.. Now in a cooler for a week and will cut up next weekend. No running water, towels/rags, meat hooks, cooling racks, gloves, tarps, plastic sheeting. But there is a band saw, and 2 cutting tables.

Wish me luck, I'll need all I can get.

P S These folks acted like they never ever touched meat except in a store.

[472x1B/A]

429421Cowboy!!! WOW!!! I have no idea what I've gotten myself into. Went to this guys house this morning as the steer was there and ready. Now I have been told by this fella that he/they have done more than 30 hogs and at least 100 deer over the last 'few' years. You would have been laughing your guts out at this.

The steer started out at 1000lbs., then went to 1200, then when I get there it is 1400lbs. Takes 5 shots (.45acp) to put it down. Pulled out of the trailer and slited/bled. Pulled into the machine shed and hoisted up with a chain hoist. A 2x8 rafter holding this whole beef up. Got it skinned, head off, legs off, gutted, split (sawsall), and quarted and took 5&1/2 hrs.. Now in a cooler for a week and will cut up next weekend. No running water, towels/rags, meat hooks, cooling racks, gloves, tarps, plastic sheeting. But there is a band saw, and 2 cutting tables.

Wish me luck, I'll need all I can get.

P S These folks acted like they never ever touched meat except in a store. They say they have a meat grinder but I didn't see one.

[429421Cowboy]

Sheesh! Sounds like a project to me! Haha reminds me of ma and pa arm deep in gore in an old three legged cancer eye cow, "ain't we lucky we got good beef to eat 'sted of that junk them folks buy from the store??"
Were the shots too low? I think usually that is the problem people have, if we ever need a second shot it is put quickly down behind the poll (where head meets neck) or at the root of the ear, that usually shuts them down pretty quick. Beef was processed for a long time with not much for tools, but sounds like the people you are helping don't know what they got into! Good luck on the whole deal, sounds like you are in charge of this operation!
Reminds me of a beef we did last summer, our neighbors asked us to bring the tractor over to help slaughter a beef for the local butcher, he showed up pulling a trailer pulled by a minivan, should have known then it was gonna be bad! One shot with a .30/30, too low, knocked him down but not out had to finish him, bled him, when i hocked him the butcher put the hook in, he reflex kicked, butcher threw the hook backwards and crowned me about an inch above the eyebrow! After we dressed the steer and were lowering him into the trailer his rusty hook broke and went through the back window of his van, after that i made a mental note to never take a beef to his shop!
I wish you the best of luck, depending on how much you want to help them you have a week to put together some supplies now that you know the situation! Keep us updated on how it goes!

[TXGunNut]

About 4 (6?) head of game ago my little electric grinder broke a nylon gear and I had 30+ lbs of sausage to make, chunks were already thawed and in the fridge. Just so happened Cabela's apparently had a price mis-print in their online ad for their commercial 3/4hp #12 grinder, I just thought it was a great price. I printed the ad to help ID the correct model and hurried to the store. Sale price was a fair bit less than the 1/2hp grinder that I wanted but I can't pass up a bargain. The price was correct in the store but they honored the internet price. Replacement gear for my old grinder is not available and I'm not willing to invest in a factory "repair" so I guess I'll toss it eventually.
That 3/4hp grinder really turns out the sausage! It's all I can do to keep up with it. I also use it to turn beef brisket into some pretty awesome chili meat and burger. Have about 50 #'s of wild pork in the freezer and I'm runnig low on sausage so that big grinder will see action soon. I only process 1-2 deer or hogs per year so this grinder is more than I need and I hope it will outlast me.
I use a vacuum sealer or LEM bags for packaging and a 44# Cabelas scale to get all the numbers right.

[crawfobj]

I have a cast iron #32 I got 10 years ago from Northern Tool. It came with the pulley for powering it, and I just so happened to have an old table saw motor laying around. I made a mounting system that uses the weight of the motor and a screw to tension the belt and it works great. I've processed 3 bull elk, a handful of deer, and a few wild hogs with it. It will flat run through the meat. My grandfather gave me a 6 quart stuffer that also works very well, but its a lot like work to crank on it with big batches.

I have a cheap, small electric grinder that I use for small jobs. It works fine, but I wouldn't want to tackle a big job with it.

I've always butchered my own elk and other critters, and we talk a big game about beef at some point, but that's a whole lot like work!

[Lloyd Smale]

you guys might get a chuckle out of this. I process between 50 and 100 deer a year and look for anything that makes it easier. One of those things is a little 18vt black and decker cordless chain saw. It works great for cutting legs off and cutting the necks off. What i do with it is keep veg oil in the chain oiler and when im done for the day store it in my chest freezer so that flys dont get at it.

[472x1B/A]

Well 429421Cowboy I was able to gather up a few items for my little escapade next Sat.. I made some hand held 'meat' hooks, got some small plastic buckets washed out, ( to wash my hands ) a few small cotton hand towels to wipe off fat,meat chunks, and light blood, a clean white cotton apron, my own paper towels, rubber gloves, AND made some extra meat hooks to give these people for their own use in the future. If there is any thing I may have left out or forgot please let me know, I could really use the help. Thanks

[429421Cowboy]

Good luck to you, i wish i was closer i'd come lend a hand! Lots of times all we have is hot water and good cotton rags like you have, they worked good for a long time and still do today for cleanup, and certainly are better than nothing! Only other thing i can think of is a good steel or some other way to touch up your knives quickly! I have mine on about a two foot loop of twine that i slip through my belt loop so it hangs by my knee where i can grab it and touch up quick.

Best of luck to you, it seems like you went from lending a neighborly helping hand to heading up this operation now!

[windturbineman]

Here is my #42 cabelas/weston grinder. I like it alot. The cuber and jerky slicer attachments work great too.

[reloader28]

We have the 1 hp Cabelas. Works great. Just as fast as you can stuff it in. We make our sausage and everything with it.

The LEM's look like good ones, but the ones I've seen were VERY noisy. The Cabelas purrs nice and quiet.

[Area Man]

Man, got a Kitchen Aid with a meat grinding attachment. Thought it was great until I came in here. Now I feel laughably outgunned.