Posted: 11/21/2014 12:38:48 PM EDT
| I'm sure this has been gone over before and I apologize. I need a grinder. Would be used for about 3 to 5 deer a year, want to get a quality unit the first time around. Lem and cabelas seem to both have good reviews. Which ones have you guys had good luck with? |
| I have the 1hp Cabelas commercial and am very pleased with it. Got it on sale, plus the cashier went ahead and gave me the 10% discount at the time (not supposed to give discounts on sale items). It grinds like a champ and takes pretty large chunks of meat with ease. Thats less meat prep that you have to do. My old man has one of the $99 LEMs that you can pick up at the farm stores and he seems to be pleased with it. I've never seen it in action though. I'm sure it does the job for him but obviously its not gonna be as strong as my cabelas grinder. |
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The cheap $79 one that I bought does a good job if you have zero connective tissue. The last deer that I ground up had minimal connective tissue/silver skin and I was stopping every 5 minutes to take the grinder apart and clean it out. After that I watched the YouTube videos on the Cabela's grinders. People were dropping in meat with large amounts of connective tissue/silver skin and the grinder just chewed right through it. The 3/4hp did an excellent job and is the one that I'm looking at getting next.
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| Cabelas commercial grade meat grinder. I got the 3/4 HP one, it will grind it as fast as you can feed it. Look at the reviews, nearly everyone love them. Comes with a 5 year warranty if I remember correctly. From looking at the reviews it looks like the 1/2 HP model would do just fine but I went ahead and got the 3/4 HP. Everything I'd use prior to getting it was a piece of crap compared to it. |
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Buy the old lady a kitchen aid mixer....then get the grinder attachment. That's what I did. She thought I was thinking of her and bought her a nice mixer..little did she know lol. I was surprised how well the grinder attachment works on the Kitchen Aid but having said that, I wouldn't want to use it for 3-5 deer a year, especially if I planned on making a lot of ground venison out of them. |
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I was surprised how well the grinder attachment works on the Kitchen Aid but having said that, I wouldn't want to use it for 3-5 deer a year, especially if I planned on making a lot of ground venison out of them. Quoted:
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Buy the old lady a kitchen aid mixer....then get the grinder attachment. That's what I did. She thought I was thinking of her and bought her a nice mixer..little did she know lol. I was surprised how well the grinder attachment works on the Kitchen Aid but having said that, I wouldn't want to use it for 3-5 deer a year, especially if I planned on making a lot of ground venison out of them. It does work well and I haven't had any issues with it. I use it on 3 a year. But i do agree if you have the money to spend a higher end dedicated grinder is good to have. |
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I have the 1hp Cabelas grinder. It's awesome. We make up 50 - 80 lbs of sausage at a time, it'll grind up meat about as fast as you can stuff it down the throat. The grinders work better if the meat is just about frozen.
I have a small electric grinder I bought in college for grinding up a deer. It works, but it's best used to grind up a bit of leftover meat to make hash or something. My brother uses one of the $100 +/- Oster grinders. It works, you have to cut the meat up into much smaller pieces to feed the grinder. The 1 hp Cabelas unit will run circles around it. I think you want to be careful of the kitchen aide grinders, they work, but they are hard on the unit. I've read on a some of the sausage forums of people having trouble burning out motors and gears. The basic kitchen aide is only a 300 watt machine - so it's not very powerful. |
| Ironically, my buddies boss had a lemi cow kick the bucket yesterday and the locker would not butcher it since it was already dead before they got there. So my buddies boss told us that we could have it if we butchered it. So we have been processing meat since yesterday. We don't have a meat locker to age it in so we are just having to process the meat without letting it hang. We ground about 90lbs of hamburger today. But before we got started today, I made a quick trip to cabelas and purchased the foot pedal. I must say, after using it today, I wont use it without it. No more reaching over with a bloody hand to turn it off. This is gonna do wonders when stuffing sausage. |
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My family has been passing around a 450watt no name grinder for 20 years. I think it cost $350 back then. That thing did a minimum of 10 deer a year and is still going strong. Dad's been getting more and more pissed every year about having to hunt it down to use it. So I bought us the 1hp cabelas commercial one this year that was on sale. Picked up the foot switch off ebay for $35. Grabbed 5 plates, 2 knives, and the bag stuffing tube off ebay for $97. Then picked up 1000 1lb bags and the bag taper for $60.
Will be taking it for it's first spin on friday. Hopefully I'll never have to wrap a pound of burger again. |
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It does work well and I haven't had any issues with it. I use it on 3 a year. But i do agree if you have the money to spend a higher end dedicated grinder is good to have. Quoted:
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Buy the old lady a kitchen aid mixer....then get the grinder attachment. That's what I did. She thought I was thinking of her and bought her a nice mixer..little did she know lol. I was surprised how well the grinder attachment works on the Kitchen Aid but having said that, I wouldn't want to use it for 3-5 deer a year, especially if I planned on making a lot of ground venison out of them. It does work well and I haven't had any issues with it. I use it on 3 a year. But i do agree if you have the money to spend a higher end dedicated grinder is good to have. Whoa, hang on a minute... I had a Kitchen Aid and the grinder attachment for almost a decade. I ground up everything from feral hogs to large bucks in mine. It does work IF and ONLY IF you cube the meat to 1" chunks, take your time, and don't overload it. A Deer takes about an hour of prep work plus another 30-45 minutes to grind. It is a royal bitch to use without doing a considerable amount of pre-grinding work. It is GREAT for an occassional chicken breast, or to grind an onion. But, processing a large animal means A LOT of additional knife work. About a year ago I finally broke down my cheap ass and bought an LEM Big Bite grinder. Holy. Shit. Fast! It simply turned a multi-hour 'chore' in to a 15 minute project. I can place 8-12" long, 2" wide pieces in the grinder and turn it on. It literally SPIT out the meat. KitchenAide will work, but, damn ... I will never look back at that decade as anything but a huge... HUGE waste of time. TRG |
Great thread. 
I don't have a grinder. I have a couple buddies who rave about theirs so I use them when I need them. The replies here let me know that I should prolly go 1 hp Cabelas instead of adding the grinder attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer which we already have. Can't remember the poster's handle that said they bought better blades, but.... what did you get and where did you get them ? ( ETA : just looked... IIRC mentioned the better blades. ) |
| I have a 1hp lem and it works fine. I also have a grinder attachment for my kitchenaid mixer that works just as well. The 1 thing I found is you have to use the wrench and torque the head down or the silver skin will not be cut and ground up and will wad up, after learning this and getting the meat rite at frozen 0 problems with jams. im getting ready to make about 35-30lbs of breakfast sausage this after noon |
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Great thread.
I don't have a grinder. I have a couple buddies who rave about theirs so I use them when I need them. The replies here let me know that I should prolly go 1 hp Cabelas instead of adding the grinder attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer which we already have. Can't remember the poster's handle that said they bought better blades, but.... what did you get and where did you get them ? ( ETA : just looked... IIRC mentioned the better blades. ) I bought the extras at a store in Amish country here in Ohio. They don't have a website but I'll look for a manufacturer's name on the parts later. |
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I've got a 3/4HP Cabellas branded one. Love it. I have done two or three deer a year for several years with the Cabelas 3/4HP myself, and it works great. We made almost 100 pounds of sausage this year and, like always, it just worked without working up a sweat. No need to have all the silverskin removed either. It takes nice, big chunks and grinds 'em no problem. |
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I bought the extras at a store in Amish country here in Ohio. They don't have a website but I'll look for a manufacturer's name on the parts later. Quoted:
Quoted:
Great thread.
I don't have a grinder. I have a couple buddies who rave about theirs so I use them when I need them. The replies here let me know that I should prolly go 1 hp Cabelas instead of adding the grinder attachment to the Kitchen Aid mixer which we already have. Can't remember the poster's handle that said they bought better blades, but.... what did you get and where did you get them ? ( ETA : just looked... IIRC mentioned the better blades. ) I bought the extras at a store in Amish country here in Ohio. They don't have a website but I'll look for a manufacturer's name on the parts later. They are L & W brand, tool steel plates. The 1HP grinder takes #22 plates. I also bought one of their blades. Big improvement over the ones that come with it. |
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like lots of things it comes down to time versus money....lol
I picked up the kitchen aid attachment two years ago. have done about 7 deer with it. It is time consuming and does require that you cube the meat small. But, it works. I will eventually get the cabelas unit. |
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like lots of things it comes down to time versus money....lol I picked up the kitchen aid attachment two years ago. have done about 7 deer with it. It is time consuming and does require that you cube the meat small. But, it works. I will eventually get the cabelas unit. I am usually a cheap bastard, but after using a kitchen-aid and upgrading to the Cabela's, I consider it some of the best money I've ever spent. We could grind those seven deer with the Cabela's faster than you can grind one with the kitchen aid. |
| Ran the Cabelas 1HP grinder on Friday. I was seriously shocked at how fast it ground. The previous grinder was only 450watts and this one is 750. I stuck a frozen backstrap in it and it reminded me of a wood chipper more than a grinder. The old grinder would of ground 2 deer twice in 2 hours. This one did it in an hour and a half and we bagged it on the second time through. The only downside is bagging it on the second grind is a 2 man job. I don't think you can feed it fast enough to bog it down. |
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The only downside is bagging it on the second grind is a 2 man job. Not sure how you are packaging it, but if you are putting it in to the 1lb game bags, if you get the footpedal it becomes a one man job. Fill the bag, let off the pedal, twist the bag, slide it through the tape dispenser, put it in the freezer. |