Thread: Economics of your own meat grinder

Originally Posted by MB

How's the grinder going @Flyblown? I'm thinking of buying one. Cheers.

For what it's worth. A mate bought a similar one. Works mint. We ended up mincing a few fallow front legs. Really useful as we were going to end up with a heap of chuck steak.

Transforms goats too. A strong enough sauce and you can substitute the goat mince for pretty much anything.

Haven't tried sausages yet.

Kids love mince.

Originally Posted by Flyblown

We had to slaughter a beef steer last week unexpectedly cos he got a respiratory infection and I wouldn’t pay the daylight robbery to get him fixed and a vets cert for the transport to the works. The only problem was freezer space - there’s already a 425kg hook weight Hereford steer in there plus who knows how much venison. So out came all the venison for a check to see whats what. Realised that there was more than I thought...

When we weighed the venison we came up with 97kg off the bone and 24kg on the bone. Hmmm, what to do. Having a yarn wife the The Wife I asked how much mince costs at the supermarket, we looked it up and just about bloody fell off the stool - $15/kg for standard grade??? Bloody hell. No wonder we are always getting asked for homekills...

Last year our old electric mincer finally died, didn’t get round to replacing it. So I bought a Kenwood 2000W mincer from Harvery Norman on a VIP deal for a little over $300 delivered.

Attachment 89941

This morning we minced 32kg of fallow and red venison, and in a production line of me as Butcher-And-Grinder-In-Chief and three sous chefs (and two keen as mustard dustbin dogs for the scraps), we made up heaps of nice fat burger patties using the bite.co.nz recipe which is a real winner (just dropped the parmesan, we don’t need that). We packaged them up into layers in boxes separated by baking paper and back into the freezer they went... in supermarket money for standard grade beef mince thats $480 worth plus whatever the eggs, milk, spices, mustard and garlic costs. The onions, herbs and bread we grow / make ourselves.

http://www.bite.co.nz/recipe/11063/Venison-burgers/

Makes my eyes water how much beef is these days. Now we don’t notice the difference really between beef mince and venison mince, when we cook up bulk meat sauce we usually mix the two. The venison burgers are bloody good, the kids love ‘em and will eat them for brekkie and dinner quite happily all week, very easy to prepare, just cook them from frozen at 180°C for half an hour, job done.

So yeah, just reflecting I guess on how much more of the deer is processed into edible food with a good strong mincer, everything goes in right to the boney part of the ligaments, no hassle having to strip out silvering or tougher parts, in it all goes. Plus it comes with the sausage making tools too. One of the deer in the freezer was a battered old fallow stag who probably wouldn’t have been much chop but as seasoned mince you won’t notice the difference. The new mincer has already paid for itself, I doubt we’d have used a lot of the older venison it would likely have gone to the dogs. If you shoot a few deer and don’t think you’ll likely get through it all, a good mincer is a bloody good investment.

Bet the mince now takes up less space.

Yup, use ours regularly. A lot of venison goes through it, all the quality mince for our consumption and all the scraps for dog food too. Good machine.

I have the Kenwood one and use it a lot (good machine).
Make patties 50/50 ven/tame pork. The local supermarket often has pork specials $5 kg, so I stock up.
Have made sausages which were edible but didnt look that flash.
Nowadays I just drop the mince mixture to the butcher to be made into sausages and salami.

if you chopped the legs off a cow would it be ground beef or a ranch slider ?

Originally Posted by gonetropo

if you chopped the legs off a cow would it be ground beef or a ranch slider ?

Both. .........did I win a prize for guessing right?

Finally got the grinder in question and done our first batch of venison burgers. First impressions are good

We use Glenn Morris of BackRidgeButcher fame and always ask for double fat on our venison sausages. I do not ask what Pixie Dust he uses but they are mouth watering and with Watties Tomato sauce, bacon, eggs, buttered bread and Nespresso coffee it is very hard to get up from the table.

Thanks to @Flyblown I just put 3 more reds and a bit of fallow into my freezer too but due to time restraints with work I opted for my local butcher to make most of the sausages this time.
Steaked up all the back straps and the best of the hind quarters and all the fore quarters, hind quarter offcuts and various other trimmings went to mince and sausages.
Happy national vegans day!

Geez, a bit flasher than my handmincer. Hmmm, might be time to trade up. I shoot a fair few bunnies so maybe some more rabbit mince. I reckon fatty bacon or cheese would be a good source of fat.

What about manual meat grinders? I hate anything with LCD screens or other gadgetry that will break. It’s much more profitable than electric grinders(25-50 average price) and no electricity needed. We bought our Kitchen basics 3 years ago on Amazon and still actively use it without any prob's

A decent manual grinder is all good until you have X number of Kgs to do regularly. Proper quality ones are ridiculously expensive also.

Like 3-4 times the price of my cheepo electric one that has been going strong for years with hundreds of kilos through it no drama.

But yes they have their place and there is always the almost cathartic part of hand cranking a mincer.

Fat from deer oxidises rapidly and gives the meat a rancid flavour. That is why most guides don't recommend its use. It will occur in storage in the freezer quite quickly. Best to use / mix pork or beef fat at 25-30% for sausages, a bit less for burgers. i like to buy those bulk packs of bacon and grind then into the venison for burgers. Mutton flaps will also work but flavour can be a bit strong.

No fat of any kind gets wasted at our house. I have a good 50kg or so in the freezer. Game fat like deer fat is extemely good for you, the more yellow the better. Grazing animals eat herbs and mixed fodder and store nutrients in their fat, some of which are hard to come by. Good for old knees. Render it and it will keep well.

I just butchered a prime cow. 600kg+ animal. Instead of having the butcher do it I did it myself and we bought a mincer and sausage maker. Wife can do small goods.

She tracked down this as supposedly the best for game meat, it has a metal gearbox and they ship to NZ.
https://www.luvele.com.au/collections/meat-grinders

She will make sausages and burger patties. Everything will get broke down, even the bone marrow.

She can also make salamis but demands a sellar. I'm thinking about a small cob room. Might work.