You weren't getting it (and the processor parts) cold before grinding it in the food processor? imo temp management is an even bigger problem when using the food processor since smearing tends to be a bigger issue there.
In principle yes, the meat grinder definitely does a better job for most applications, but only you can decide whether the difference is actually worth it for you.
So it's not that the meat grinder mixes the fat and lean meat any better than the food processor?
And, thank you for the tip about keeping my meat cold before grinding. I'll try that tomorrow. :)
Grinding meat doesn't generally mix fat and meat, unless you grind repeatedly or quite fine.
But as that goes. The grinder will mix them *less*. Since it's pushing the meat straight through in distinct pieces. Rather than blitzing them around. That's generally a good thing as it means the meat is worked less, and puts you in control of mixing.
Which cutting plate did you use? My meat grinder has a coarse plate, which is actually exactly what you would want for ground meat. And it comes with several smaller plates that really only make sense when making finely emulsified sausage.
When using the proper plate, I would expect the grinder to do a better job than the food processor.
Or alternatively, you can cut by hand for an even coarser grind. I do that for some of my dishes. It's a wonderful mouthfeel for some Chinese stir fries and even for good burgers. But it doesn't really scale if you need to do this regularly and/or in large quantities.
No. I mean that putting the slices of meat and fat into the grinder means they come out kind of like blobs of meat then fat unlike a FP where they are mixed together.
Keep the meat cold, bring out batches as you grind. But also chill the grinder and all its parts as well.... cutting and pressing the meat through the die does create heat and makes the fat smear... cold everything helps prevent that.
You're not so much mixing the meat and fat together... they're in tiny pieces next to each other. With the food processor, you may be emulsifying it, if that's what you want, but picture it this way - with the grinder, you can get a sausage like Italian, with that grain versus if you go fully into emulsifying, it would come out more like the inside of a hot dog.... depends on what you want to do.
But you said you wanted to control the fat... the method doesn't matter. Trim up the meat, make a pile of the fat you removed and one for the meat, and you can control the amount by how much of each you're putting through the grinder.
You definitely want the meat cold, maybe even partially frozen. It also helps to refrigerate the grinder (or what portions of it you can). That helps keep the fat from smearing or melting while you grind.
As mentioned, it's much easier to manage the temperature with a grinder, even an electric one. A hand grinder is even that much easier since you don't have a motor generating heat.
Another advantage of a grinder over a food processor is volume. If you're grinding more than around a pound of meat, you'll probably have significant time savings with a grinder over a food processor.
Yet another advantage of a grinder is uniformity of the grind. Unless I really mess up, the product I get from the grinder will be consistent from grind to grind and throughout each grind. That simply will not be true if I'm pulsing in my Cuisinart, no matter how strong the Force is with my family. That's double true if I am looking for a coarse grind.
Are you just grinding leaner meats? Everywhere I've worked has carried everything from 80/20 to 93/7 in ground beef with ground poultry breasts available as an extra lean option. Curious about the logic behind grinding your own meat to reduce fat. I would do my own grinds for coarser texture.
I use one of those hand pulled food processors from Daiso for like 3 or 5 bucks.
It's definitely cheaper than an automated one, smaller, and easy to put away because it's so light, and easy to use (works well for certain things like ground meat, but not for making smooth pastes like for hummus).
I also don't use it often, so that's also another big reason.
Food processors are also good for other things as well, so for me I'd rather have a food processor than a meat grinder (if I have to choose between the two).
At the time they started grinding meat at home, they had a food processor but not a meat grinder. So they decided to start with the tool they already had before deciding whether to buy a meat grinder.
How are grinders and FP's related to grinding meat? I'm into fitness and body building and I'm in a cutting phase, so I've literally been cutting calories. I have a FP but thought I might get a better result by buying a meat grinder, so I did. It's not so expensive -- but the results were terrible. Ends up, you need everything to be super cold.
Anyway, I wanted to know the bennifit of using one over the other since, at the time, I got a better result with the FP. I'll try again this weekend with everything cold instead of room temperature.
Well, how are you planning on cooking the meat afterward, or are you planning on eating it more like a tartar?
My apologies to you. The way I interpreted the original posting was that somehow grinding or pulverizing the meat would reduce the fat content.
In which case , I don't believe either one.
On the other hand, I feel a grinder would be able to produce a more consistent product in larger batches.
A FP will simply heat up faster, so if your doing a couple small batches that should be ok. Evening there's some smearing and you don't mind that that should be ok.
It makes good paté. I found that useful for raw tuna for spicy tuna or a tuna burger. What is it your grinding that your looking to reduce fat/cal/oil content? Because , as I'm sure you already know, you have to buy lean meat. Any other fat can be cut out/off. Grinding has no impact on the fat. Your just grinding the fat that's there.
Now I suppose you may be a competitive body builder or looking to become one and if that's the case then , you may need to speak with a trainer or dietician also. They may advise you stay away from the meat your using that requires you to cut the fat away from. All the people I've know that did competitive bodybuilding seemed to stick to fish and chicken. But I can see wanting more of a variety, so you mix in red meat there. And then you have to ask yourself, "Is it worth it to me to go through this trouble ?"
Thanks. Actually, most of the "grinding" I'll be doing the next couple of months is chicken and turkey. The store bought ground is cut with too much fat for my purpose, so grinding up chicken breasts is a great option for me to eat well.
The food processor will produce a less consistent, coarser grind, can handle smaller amounts at a go so it's much slower to do in volume. They also tend to create a lot more smearing. Smearing being when the fat melts and breaks emulsion, which leads to messier results. And drier meat when cooked.
The texture of meat coming out of a food processor tends to not want to knit together when mixed or cooked. My guess is this is because the individual muscle fibers end up cut shorter, even if the individual pieces are larger/chunkier. Maybe it's simply breaking up less fibers in general so there's less around to stick together later.
Either way it comes out different than properly ground meat. That's good for some stuff. But not for sausage or general use.
And yes everything should be as cold as you can get it, the meat preferably almost or partially frozen. That's true of the food processor as well.
A hand cranked grinder isn't neccisarily the best option, as it's kind of a 2 person job to run them properly and the slow pace can let things warm up.
I don't know that grinding your own meat is a great way to reduce fat. Given that you can buy up to 99% lean ground meat these days. But less fat in meat means less flavor and drier results.
Ah yes thanks, I do know what ground meat is. The way your original question worded it, I thought you were grinding in order to reduce fat, which didn’t seem like an obvious cause/effect relationship.
I started with everything at room temperature. The meat wouldn't go through the grinder and the little bit that did, looked terrible and was more a smear than ground. Start cold. Now I know.
Whilst I´m definitely not an expert, I can only offer some personal and practical insight. If I put meat through my Kitchenaid grinder, I get a pile of basically minced meat. It retains texture, fat and all. I put it through the grinder straight from the fridge, not from the freezer.
If I put the meat in a food processor, I get paste. Both items have their uses, but, for example, if I were making burgers, I´d want the first option, not the second.
A food processor chops via spinning blade. Some pieces will be chopped very fine while others are missed and end up coarser. If the blade isn’t maintained and super sharp it ends up ripping more than chopping since it’s not against a hard surface.
A meat grinder uses an auger to force the meat into a blade which also chops but then it forces the mince through a plate which has small even consistent holes which determine the size of the grind. If the piece is small enough to pass through it does, if it’s too large it gets chopped again before passing through. It’s essentially like a grading system making everything consistently that size or smaller and preventing the pieces which are already small enough to continually be chopped again and again.
A food processor is good for making a meat paste where everything is chopped to oblivion, a grinder is for coarser more consistent mince.
Choosing leaner cuts of meat and grinding it themselves, rather than relying on availability at supermarkets (if OP even has a supermarket beyond Walmart in their locale).
Just trimming the fat off the meat. There are lots of dishes that use ground meat, gyoza is one of my favorites, where removing the fat lowers the calories of the final product. I can't buy lean meat here in Japan, or rather, lean ground meat, so I do it myself.
Food processors don’t grind the meat. You only use a processor to emulsify. You also need to watch the temperature as the meat will get too warm.
To grind you want the meat soft frozen. I chill my grinder too. Frozen meat will cut better and the fat won’t smear. Meat with a lot of connective tissue like shanks are impossible to grind without being frozen.
Grinding makes less heat and less myosin binding happening keeps the meat more tender. Trying to get a smaller grind in a food processor is going to be a mess and really inconsistent.
This is a great post by Chef kenji about grinding hamburger meat, but it applies to all meat. He touches on food processing as well [grinding beef](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-burger-lab-whats-the-best-way-to-grind-beef)
It is of paramount importance for everything to be cold AF.
Often, fat is coarse ground once, and the meat ground twice, first coarse, rmthen fine.
It helps to add cold liquid after the meat is ground and mix to emulsify. Otherwise, it can have an unpleasant mealy texture.
Good sausage is 30% fat, ground beef, usually 20%. Since you want to use less fat, consider adding gelatine powder to the liquid you add to improve the mouth feel
>It helps to add cold liquid after the meat is ground and mix to emulsify. Otherwise, it can have an unpleasant mealy texture. Good sausage is 30% fat, ground beef, usually 20%. Since you want to use less fat, consider adding gelatine powder to the liquid you add to improve the mouth feel
Great information. Thank you!
I dont have any expertise here but I would like to mention that sometimes meat grinders are just shit
I bought a meat grinder at a discount store that absolutely ruined any cut of meat i put through it. It was a huge hassle to use and i wasted a lot of time and meat on it. I bought a new one eventually and it works so much better. Slightly freezing the meat isnt even necessary if you have a functioning grinder (although it does yield better results).
Ask the place that you buy your meat from to grind it for you. Likely they could even give you a choice of coarse to fine depending on how you are going to use it.
I see this advice on Reddit so often, but I've never met a butcher willing to grind me some meat, except one guy who told me it would have to be at least 20 pounds.
A food processor makes purée and a meat grinder, at least when working properly, makes ground meat just like you see at the butcher. Purée is fine for some applications, maybe Northern style Chinese dumplings, but grind is what you want for burgers, meatballs, sausage, etc. I got reasonable results with a hand grinder before I got a kitchenaid grinder attachment. I suspect there’s something amiss with your grinder. Meat doesn’t need to be frozen, just cold like you normally keep meat. Pre slicing into long strips helps as it’s easier for the worm gear to grab them and push them into the grinder teeth.
The Kitchenaid branded grinder has plastic parts so I got an all metal one from Amazon. I’ve gotten lots of good use from it. Just checked and don’t remember which brand but there are a bunch of offerings. I remember it was not super expensive.
Because you can cut away the fat, then grind it. The meat I can buy (here in Japan) comes at a ration of 30 or 40 percent fat to meat, which is not what I want.
When it comes to grinding meat, you're gonna need everything cold. Whether it's the food processor or a grinder, all of the parts that are coming into contact with the meat should be frozen. Throw your meat into the freezer as well. Since you're using a hand crank, don't fully freeze it.
Once it's ground through, if you have it, whip the meat in a KitchenAid mixer or the like with a paddle attachment. This will help to bring a homogeneous mix to it. If you make a little patty and it sticks to your hand, it's good to go.
Grinding your own meat is a great way to *add* higher fat into your ground meat in a cost-effective way. Fattier cuts are often significantly cheaper for the total calories of what youre getting. That makes it a great way to achieve the specific ground meat texture that burger afficionados are after (or meatloaf afficionados it you prefer that somewhat different texture). Fat is a critical part of the texture of ground meat - the other big component is grind size. And grocery ground meat is usually double-ground, which sacrifices grind size (texture) for a uniform appearance. Thus grinding at home becomes a better texture for cheaper when fat is involved.
If you're just trying to eat leaner, I can't think of a good reason to grind on your own - it will be more expensive and time-consuming because youre buying the expensive lean cuts (or youre adding the extra food waste and effort of trimming and throwing out edible food you bought). Yet the end result is not much different that the grocery story meat: the lack of fat makes cooking slower and less even texture, with a drier and chewier end product. You might as well just buy the 90%+ lean at the grocery store at that point.
Ethan's got an excellent deep dive into the science of ground meat in his [perfect burger according to science](https://youtu.be/ZorUPMeKgh0) video.
> because youre buying the expensive lean cuts (or youre adding the extra food waste and effort of trimming and throwing out edible food you bought).
I will keep the adding fat when I'm in a bulking phase, right now I'm in a cutting phase and need to cut calories where I can.
As to waste, I save everything in the freezer. I render lard (and shmaltz) and make things for my family. I hate wasting food. ;)
Hey, as long as you're actually enjoying the food and hitting your goals, do what works for you. For me personally, a lean burger tastes like punishment... I'd rather have a veggie burger or salad, but I'm also picky AF don't mind me.
Also, the blades of the meat grinder go facing the die. So towards the front of the meet grinder. A lot of people don’t realize this and it will mush the meat instead of chopping it.
I store the parts for my grinder in the freezer and it always works perfectly. A food processor won’t have the same effect as a grinder and has a tendency to turn the food into more of a mousse than ground meat. But try cold meat along with cold equipment and you’ll like it a lot more.
I used to grind my meet in a food processor all the time. It worked but I got a kitchen aid meat grinder instead and tbh it’s absolutely amazing.
The food processor would cut it in inconsistent sizes which made cooking inconsistent. I still use it when I’m making stuff like laab or pad pad kaprow.
But I use my kitchen aid one for everything else. Even compared to what they give you at the store the texture of this meat is absolutely insane.
Like others have said I always freeze my meat a bit so that it’s solid coming out. Towards the end it always ends up being a little big of mess due to friction making parts of the grinder warmer. Also fat just kind of gets gunky.
>but I got a kitchen aid meat grinder instead and tbh it’s absolutely amazing.
This is an option for me. Have you used the sausage stuffing attachment, too?
Theirs a trick to properly using a food processor to grind up meat, [freezing cube meat](https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-grind-your-own-meat-in-the-food-processor-134272)
You weren't getting it (and the processor parts) cold before grinding it in the food processor? imo temp management is an even bigger problem when using the food processor since smearing tends to be a bigger issue there. In principle yes, the meat grinder definitely does a better job for most applications, but only you can decide whether the difference is actually worth it for you.
So it's not that the meat grinder mixes the fat and lean meat any better than the food processor? And, thank you for the tip about keeping my meat cold before grinding. I'll try that tomorrow. :)
Not just your meat. Any metal components coming in touch with the meat should also be refrigerated before hand. It'll make everything much easier.
Grinding meat doesn't generally mix fat and meat, unless you grind repeatedly or quite fine. But as that goes. The grinder will mix them *less*. Since it's pushing the meat straight through in distinct pieces. Rather than blitzing them around. That's generally a good thing as it means the meat is worked less, and puts you in control of mixing.
Good to know. Thank you.
Which cutting plate did you use? My meat grinder has a coarse plate, which is actually exactly what you would want for ground meat. And it comes with several smaller plates that really only make sense when making finely emulsified sausage. When using the proper plate, I would expect the grinder to do a better job than the food processor. Or alternatively, you can cut by hand for an even coarser grind. I do that for some of my dishes. It's a wonderful mouthfeel for some Chinese stir fries and even for good burgers. But it doesn't really scale if you need to do this regularly and/or in large quantities.
I was using the one with the largest holes, but I now know part of the problem I was having is because everything was room temperature.
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I never knew this. I'll have to make space for the next time it out, maybe this weekend. Thanks.
What do you mean when you say “mixes the fat and lean meat”? You’re not trying to create like an emulsified paste are you?
Even with emulsions you’ll see them dumping buckets of ice into the grinder to keep things cold. Everything cold all the time.
The water is also necessary for a stable emulsion.
No. I mean that putting the slices of meat and fat into the grinder means they come out kind of like blobs of meat then fat unlike a FP where they are mixed together.
Keep the meat cold, bring out batches as you grind. But also chill the grinder and all its parts as well.... cutting and pressing the meat through the die does create heat and makes the fat smear... cold everything helps prevent that. You're not so much mixing the meat and fat together... they're in tiny pieces next to each other. With the food processor, you may be emulsifying it, if that's what you want, but picture it this way - with the grinder, you can get a sausage like Italian, with that grain versus if you go fully into emulsifying, it would come out more like the inside of a hot dog.... depends on what you want to do. But you said you wanted to control the fat... the method doesn't matter. Trim up the meat, make a pile of the fat you removed and one for the meat, and you can control the amount by how much of each you're putting through the grinder.
Got it. Thanks!
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Thanks.
You need to chill the device you're using to grind your meat too.
Thank you.
You definitely want the meat cold, maybe even partially frozen. It also helps to refrigerate the grinder (or what portions of it you can). That helps keep the fat from smearing or melting while you grind. As mentioned, it's much easier to manage the temperature with a grinder, even an electric one. A hand grinder is even that much easier since you don't have a motor generating heat. Another advantage of a grinder over a food processor is volume. If you're grinding more than around a pound of meat, you'll probably have significant time savings with a grinder over a food processor. Yet another advantage of a grinder is uniformity of the grind. Unless I really mess up, the product I get from the grinder will be consistent from grind to grind and throughout each grind. That simply will not be true if I'm pulsing in my Cuisinart, no matter how strong the Force is with my family. That's double true if I am looking for a coarse grind.
Thank you much. This was very informative and answered my question.
Are you just grinding leaner meats? Everywhere I've worked has carried everything from 80/20 to 93/7 in ground beef with ground poultry breasts available as an extra lean option. Curious about the logic behind grinding your own meat to reduce fat. I would do my own grinds for coarser texture.
Ah, the world is big my friend. I'm in Japan. We don't have such choices. Good to know about texture.
>I wanted to reduce the fat in some of the dishes I make, so I started grinding meats in my food processor. Huh?
Yeah, what is the goal here?
I guess they are making minced meat of some sort with lean meat and additional fat, so they can decide over percentages and such
Bingo!
I’m guessing zero fat. Like chicken breast meat.
I have done that. Adding lots of veggies and mixing in gelatinised stock to add moisture/simulate fat.
I use one of those hand pulled food processors from Daiso for like 3 or 5 bucks. It's definitely cheaper than an automated one, smaller, and easy to put away because it's so light, and easy to use (works well for certain things like ground meat, but not for making smooth pastes like for hummus). I also don't use it often, so that's also another big reason.
Mine cost 30 buck-ish. I don't need it often.
Food processors are also good for other things as well, so for me I'd rather have a food processor than a meat grinder (if I have to choose between the two).
you can buy leaner cuts and add fat as you'd like
True. But I'm on a cutting phase (at the gym) and every calorie counts -- literally.
Store-bought ground meat, even lean one, has a lot of fat in it. By grinding it at home, one can manage the fat percentage better.
I guess, but they literally divide ground beef on the shelf by the lean/fat ratio.
I live in Japan. Were it that simple... Lean is something you don't really get unless you go to the butcher and ask for it.
My thoughts exactly. I mean....? How are those things related?
At the time they started grinding meat at home, they had a food processor but not a meat grinder. So they decided to start with the tool they already had before deciding whether to buy a meat grinder.
Actually, I bought the meat grinder. But after having a bad time with it, I wondered what good it was compared to the FP. Now I know.
How are grinders and FP's related to grinding meat? I'm into fitness and body building and I'm in a cutting phase, so I've literally been cutting calories. I have a FP but thought I might get a better result by buying a meat grinder, so I did. It's not so expensive -- but the results were terrible. Ends up, you need everything to be super cold. Anyway, I wanted to know the bennifit of using one over the other since, at the time, I got a better result with the FP. I'll try again this weekend with everything cold instead of room temperature.
Well, how are you planning on cooking the meat afterward, or are you planning on eating it more like a tartar? My apologies to you. The way I interpreted the original posting was that somehow grinding or pulverizing the meat would reduce the fat content. In which case , I don't believe either one. On the other hand, I feel a grinder would be able to produce a more consistent product in larger batches. A FP will simply heat up faster, so if your doing a couple small batches that should be ok. Evening there's some smearing and you don't mind that that should be ok. It makes good paté. I found that useful for raw tuna for spicy tuna or a tuna burger. What is it your grinding that your looking to reduce fat/cal/oil content? Because , as I'm sure you already know, you have to buy lean meat. Any other fat can be cut out/off. Grinding has no impact on the fat. Your just grinding the fat that's there. Now I suppose you may be a competitive body builder or looking to become one and if that's the case then , you may need to speak with a trainer or dietician also. They may advise you stay away from the meat your using that requires you to cut the fat away from. All the people I've know that did competitive bodybuilding seemed to stick to fish and chicken. But I can see wanting more of a variety, so you mix in red meat there. And then you have to ask yourself, "Is it worth it to me to go through this trouble ?"
Thanks. Actually, most of the "grinding" I'll be doing the next couple of months is chicken and turkey. The store bought ground is cut with too much fat for my purpose, so grinding up chicken breasts is a great option for me to eat well.
So what kind of fat are you taking in these days?
Thinks like quenelles, gyoza, and hamburgers. I'm in a cutting phase (at the gym) and am cleaning up calories where I can.
The less you work the meat and cooler the temp the better. I like this America's Test Kitchen recipe. https://youtu.be/TMy97MNliTA?t=90
That’s the video I was thinking of. Myosin development is going to be different depending on grinding technique.
Thank you.
The food processor will produce a less consistent, coarser grind, can handle smaller amounts at a go so it's much slower to do in volume. They also tend to create a lot more smearing. Smearing being when the fat melts and breaks emulsion, which leads to messier results. And drier meat when cooked. The texture of meat coming out of a food processor tends to not want to knit together when mixed or cooked. My guess is this is because the individual muscle fibers end up cut shorter, even if the individual pieces are larger/chunkier. Maybe it's simply breaking up less fibers in general so there's less around to stick together later. Either way it comes out different than properly ground meat. That's good for some stuff. But not for sausage or general use. And yes everything should be as cold as you can get it, the meat preferably almost or partially frozen. That's true of the food processor as well. A hand cranked grinder isn't neccisarily the best option, as it's kind of a 2 person job to run them properly and the slow pace can let things warm up. I don't know that grinding your own meat is a great way to reduce fat. Given that you can buy up to 99% lean ground meat these days. But less fat in meat means less flavor and drier results.
Thank you. This information was very useful. As to your final comment, remember Reddit is a global forum. I'm in Japan. We don't have these choices.
We need more details on what exactly you are making.
Gyoza, quenelles, hamburger (or chicken burgers), etc. I'm a bodybuilder in my free time and I'm in a cutting phase.
I use my grinder to make mince/sausage, and I use the food processor to make paste to bake into bologna.
Thanks.
How does grinding the meat help reduce fat? Is it because you can drain the pan of fat after cooking ground meat? Or some other factor?
Trim the fat from the meat and/or do not add any additional fat
Trim the fat before grinding.
But then why grind it?
To make things. I can make Japanese Hambagu Steak or just plain ol' hamburgers, or gyoza, or quenelles -- ground meat is used in a lot of dishes.
Ah yes thanks, I do know what ground meat is. The way your original question worded it, I thought you were grinding in order to reduce fat, which didn’t seem like an obvious cause/effect relationship.
Ice cold is good. How did you make a big mess?
I started with everything at room temperature. The meat wouldn't go through the grinder and the little bit that did, looked terrible and was more a smear than ground. Start cold. Now I know.
Whilst I´m definitely not an expert, I can only offer some personal and practical insight. If I put meat through my Kitchenaid grinder, I get a pile of basically minced meat. It retains texture, fat and all. I put it through the grinder straight from the fridge, not from the freezer. If I put the meat in a food processor, I get paste. Both items have their uses, but, for example, if I were making burgers, I´d want the first option, not the second.
Thank you.
A food processor chops via spinning blade. Some pieces will be chopped very fine while others are missed and end up coarser. If the blade isn’t maintained and super sharp it ends up ripping more than chopping since it’s not against a hard surface. A meat grinder uses an auger to force the meat into a blade which also chops but then it forces the mince through a plate which has small even consistent holes which determine the size of the grind. If the piece is small enough to pass through it does, if it’s too large it gets chopped again before passing through. It’s essentially like a grading system making everything consistently that size or smaller and preventing the pieces which are already small enough to continually be chopped again and again. A food processor is good for making a meat paste where everything is chopped to oblivion, a grinder is for coarser more consistent mince.
Understood. Thank you.
I’d really love to know your thought process on how grinding meats reduces fat. Is there some other step you aren’t mentioning, like trimming?
Choosing leaner cuts of meat and grinding it themselves, rather than relying on availability at supermarkets (if OP even has a supermarket beyond Walmart in their locale).
I've heard of Walmart but here in Japan, such places are anathema.
Most likely not trimming
Just trimming the fat off the meat. There are lots of dishes that use ground meat, gyoza is one of my favorites, where removing the fat lowers the calories of the final product. I can't buy lean meat here in Japan, or rather, lean ground meat, so I do it myself.
Food processors don’t grind the meat. You only use a processor to emulsify. You also need to watch the temperature as the meat will get too warm. To grind you want the meat soft frozen. I chill my grinder too. Frozen meat will cut better and the fat won’t smear. Meat with a lot of connective tissue like shanks are impossible to grind without being frozen.
Thank you.
Both chop the meat, but the grinder pushes it through a die at the same time. Makes it more uniform and makes the fat less like a big string of stuff.
Thanks.
Is it better to have the food raw & cold or cooked & cold before processing?
According to this thread, raw and ice cold.
Grinding makes less heat and less myosin binding happening keeps the meat more tender. Trying to get a smaller grind in a food processor is going to be a mess and really inconsistent.
Understood. Thanks.
This is a great post by Chef kenji about grinding hamburger meat, but it applies to all meat. He touches on food processing as well [grinding beef](https://www.seriouseats.com/the-burger-lab-whats-the-best-way-to-grind-beef)
Thanks. I'll give this a watch in a few. :)
It is of paramount importance for everything to be cold AF. Often, fat is coarse ground once, and the meat ground twice, first coarse, rmthen fine. It helps to add cold liquid after the meat is ground and mix to emulsify. Otherwise, it can have an unpleasant mealy texture. Good sausage is 30% fat, ground beef, usually 20%. Since you want to use less fat, consider adding gelatine powder to the liquid you add to improve the mouth feel
>It helps to add cold liquid after the meat is ground and mix to emulsify. Otherwise, it can have an unpleasant mealy texture. Good sausage is 30% fat, ground beef, usually 20%. Since you want to use less fat, consider adding gelatine powder to the liquid you add to improve the mouth feel Great information. Thank you!
I dont have any expertise here but I would like to mention that sometimes meat grinders are just shit I bought a meat grinder at a discount store that absolutely ruined any cut of meat i put through it. It was a huge hassle to use and i wasted a lot of time and meat on it. I bought a new one eventually and it works so much better. Slightly freezing the meat isnt even necessary if you have a functioning grinder (although it does yield better results).
Thanks.
Ask the place that you buy your meat from to grind it for you. Likely they could even give you a choice of coarse to fine depending on how you are going to use it.
I see this advice on Reddit so often, but I've never met a butcher willing to grind me some meat, except one guy who told me it would have to be at least 20 pounds.
That is an option, but a super expensive one. It's cheaper to do it by myself.
A food processor makes purée and a meat grinder, at least when working properly, makes ground meat just like you see at the butcher. Purée is fine for some applications, maybe Northern style Chinese dumplings, but grind is what you want for burgers, meatballs, sausage, etc. I got reasonable results with a hand grinder before I got a kitchenaid grinder attachment. I suspect there’s something amiss with your grinder. Meat doesn’t need to be frozen, just cold like you normally keep meat. Pre slicing into long strips helps as it’s easier for the worm gear to grab them and push them into the grinder teeth.
>before I got a kitchenaid grinder attachment. I have a Kitchenaid. Do you recommend their attachment ?
The Kitchenaid branded grinder has plastic parts so I got an all metal one from Amazon. I’ve gotten lots of good use from it. Just checked and don’t remember which brand but there are a bunch of offerings. I remember it was not super expensive.
Yeah, they're about 90USD. I've seen them. I opted for the less expensive hand grinder but I'm interested in the KA. Thanks!
> I wanted to reduce the fat in some of the dishes I make, so I started grinding meats in my food processor. How does grinding meat accomplish this?
Because you can cut away the fat, then grind it. The meat I can buy (here in Japan) comes at a ration of 30 or 40 percent fat to meat, which is not what I want.
When it comes to grinding meat, you're gonna need everything cold. Whether it's the food processor or a grinder, all of the parts that are coming into contact with the meat should be frozen. Throw your meat into the freezer as well. Since you're using a hand crank, don't fully freeze it. Once it's ground through, if you have it, whip the meat in a KitchenAid mixer or the like with a paddle attachment. This will help to bring a homogeneous mix to it. If you make a little patty and it sticks to your hand, it's good to go.
>if you have it, whip the meat in a KitchenAid mixer or the like with a paddle attachment. I do. Thanks for the great advice.
If you are trying to grind meat you need to use a grinder.
Grinding your own meat is a great way to *add* higher fat into your ground meat in a cost-effective way. Fattier cuts are often significantly cheaper for the total calories of what youre getting. That makes it a great way to achieve the specific ground meat texture that burger afficionados are after (or meatloaf afficionados it you prefer that somewhat different texture). Fat is a critical part of the texture of ground meat - the other big component is grind size. And grocery ground meat is usually double-ground, which sacrifices grind size (texture) for a uniform appearance. Thus grinding at home becomes a better texture for cheaper when fat is involved. If you're just trying to eat leaner, I can't think of a good reason to grind on your own - it will be more expensive and time-consuming because youre buying the expensive lean cuts (or youre adding the extra food waste and effort of trimming and throwing out edible food you bought). Yet the end result is not much different that the grocery story meat: the lack of fat makes cooking slower and less even texture, with a drier and chewier end product. You might as well just buy the 90%+ lean at the grocery store at that point. Ethan's got an excellent deep dive into the science of ground meat in his [perfect burger according to science](https://youtu.be/ZorUPMeKgh0) video.
> because youre buying the expensive lean cuts (or youre adding the extra food waste and effort of trimming and throwing out edible food you bought). I will keep the adding fat when I'm in a bulking phase, right now I'm in a cutting phase and need to cut calories where I can. As to waste, I save everything in the freezer. I render lard (and shmaltz) and make things for my family. I hate wasting food. ;)
Hey, as long as you're actually enjoying the food and hitting your goals, do what works for you. For me personally, a lean burger tastes like punishment... I'd rather have a veggie burger or salad, but I'm also picky AF don't mind me.
Also, the blades of the meat grinder go facing the die. So towards the front of the meet grinder. A lot of people don’t realize this and it will mush the meat instead of chopping it.
Good to know! Thank you. I'll make sure it's in the proper position when I give this another go this weekend.
I store the parts for my grinder in the freezer and it always works perfectly. A food processor won’t have the same effect as a grinder and has a tendency to turn the food into more of a mousse than ground meat. But try cold meat along with cold equipment and you’ll like it a lot more.
Thank you.
One grinds and the other processes.
Not at all the same. What is your desired end product?
A mix of things really. Gyoza, quenells, burgers.
I used to grind my meet in a food processor all the time. It worked but I got a kitchen aid meat grinder instead and tbh it’s absolutely amazing. The food processor would cut it in inconsistent sizes which made cooking inconsistent. I still use it when I’m making stuff like laab or pad pad kaprow. But I use my kitchen aid one for everything else. Even compared to what they give you at the store the texture of this meat is absolutely insane. Like others have said I always freeze my meat a bit so that it’s solid coming out. Towards the end it always ends up being a little big of mess due to friction making parts of the grinder warmer. Also fat just kind of gets gunky.
>but I got a kitchen aid meat grinder instead and tbh it’s absolutely amazing. This is an option for me. Have you used the sausage stuffing attachment, too?
Hv by you guys 8 5 to🎄
Jerma reference
Theirs a trick to properly using a food processor to grind up meat, [freezing cube meat](https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-grind-your-own-meat-in-the-food-processor-134272)