Meat Grinder

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wjbunton

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Anyone have the Food Grinder Attachment for the KitchenAid Stand Mixer?
This one

I was thinking about getting one to be able to make some sausage. Is it able to do much at a time or would I be better off spending a little more and getting a dedicated grinder? I am looking to be able to do about 5 pound batches.
 
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It works fine, just cut the meat into strips that you can feed into the grinder. I just made my first Kielbasa on mine but when you use the stuffer it works best with two people. One person feeds the ground meat into the grinder while someone else works the casing off the tube as it's being stuffed. Nice thing making your own is you can spice it the way you want and keep the fat content to about 30%. If I get into making it a lot, I'll end up buying a dedicated stuffer that is a press for filling the casings.
 
Thanks for the help guys, looks like I will be picking one up very soon. I am very accustomed to making sausage and how it is much easier with 2 people. My grandpa used to have a large commercial grinder and I spent a fall processing deer with him. Used to consistently make 20 or 30 five pound summer sausage sticks twice a week, and that's on top of the burger, chorizo, italian, and polish that we made.
 
Anyone have the Food Grinder Attachment for the KitchenAid Stand Mixer?
This one

I was thinking about getting one to be able to make some sausage. Is it able to do much at a time or would I be better off spending a little more and getting a dedicated grinder? I am looking to be able to do about 5 pound batches.

I've got it, and I haven't made that much at a time, but I don't see any issue with that. The speed setting is at a very low setting, it's not like burning out the unit with the mill grinder at speed 10 or something.

The fine plate might be useless, depending who you ask. So far as I can tell, you want to run the meat through twice, using the coarse plate both times (I do this with all meats, not just for sausages). So run just the meat through, catching it all without casing. Then add your spices, mix them up, and then run it through the grinder one more time. Finally, use the SSA, and make your sausages. I've not used collagen, but found that Whole Foods sells lamb gut casing for about $3 for more than I know what to do with. It lasts well over a week in water. There is a good video I can find for you, using the KA, I like this channel a lot, for the few things I've seen, lemme grab it.

Oh, IMO, you don't need a second person to do this. If you have someone, that is convenient, and social, but totally not necessary.

 
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I have the FGA Attatchment and it does do a fine job. I just did a 20+ pound batch of sausage and it took about 2 hours to grind, regrind and stuff it all into natural hog casings. It will take a little practice to get the stuffing part to a comfortable tempo, but do not over speed the mixer and smear your fat. Most folks dont get the whole chill till almost frozen and work your meat slowly to avoid smearing. I run my Kitchenaide on the lowest speed and us all of the different attatchments when I am making sausage or snack sticks. The flat blade beater is great also for loosening up your sliced and marinated meats for jerky. It works better than a tenderizer. The FGA and The grater are great for chopping onions and other additives like garlic. The it all goes into the grinder with the meat, gets mixed and stufffed. then it all goes into the dishwasher for a quick canitize for the next project.
Wheelchair Bob
 
If you are only ever doing small batches, the attachment is probably good enough.

Larger batches are going to take a little more time, possibly require resting the grinder at some points, but will still get the job done.


I have a 1 HP LEM grinder, but then again I will often grind 2-3 deer's worth of meat in one go. That can be 70-100 pounds.


I can double-grind that amount in under an hour with mine. It would likely take you the better part of a day with the KA.


I also don't like using a grinder for stuffing sausage. It adds heat to the meat. Then again, when you are only working with 5 pounds, this is less of an issue. My smallest sausage batch is generally 15 pounds, and sometimes 30 depending on what I am making.
 
I would recommend against the KA attachment. I used one, and then a new one for too long. The grinding mechanism is ok, but it clogs easily and is horrible for stuffing. The two best things I ever did for my sausage, pate, salumi, making was getting a dedicated grinder and a piston type stuffer. If you are serious about making a great sausage then these are the way to go. Both of these upgrades helped me make sausages with better texture in less time. Now I only wish I had a larger or electric stuffer.

If you want a great source for almost all the sausage making supplies you would ever need, butcher-packer supply in detroit is great and ships quickly.
 
I have it, for a grinder it's ok...but the stuffing horn is nearly useless.
 
I've got one and it works well for grinding, but it is developing cracks in the housing near where it attaches to the motor. We don't put it to heavy use, so if you are looking fore something to stand up to heavy usage I would get something else. The ones they have been selling for the last 20 years or so are plastic, that's what I have, my mom's is metal and is probably 40 years old. I'm hoping to inherent it at some point, but my sister will probably get it. Maybe she'll let me visit it once in awhile. If you really want one for your kitchen aid mixer I would haunt flea markets and garage sales to find a metal one.
 

Not a bad little stuffer by the looks of it. You could also go with a lever style stuffer if you only do larger casings (don't bother for snack sticks or even breakfast sausage sized links. ) they run about 50 dollars.

A third option is the jerky Canon, which runs about 30 dollars iirc. It will only hold about a pound or so, but would work better for small batches than using a grinder as a stuffer.

Even with the stuffing plate, another pass through the grinder yields lesser quality sausage opposed to having a dedicated suffer.

I have a Dakotah water stuffer, which can hold about 10 pounds at a time. I'd like to replace it with a Cabelas stuffer eventually. Simply because I can get a motor for that one. Dedicated motorized stuffers are expensive.
 
Back to the grinder, I pulled the trigger on it and made up 15 lbs. last weekend, 5 each of italian, chorizo, and pop's breakfast. Worked great, probably took about an hour and a half to do it including mixing seasonings and a second grind to about half of it.
 
Congrats on the grinder. Grinding is much safer and easier if the meats are par-frozen. Before grinding, you should put the grinding attachments in the freezer for 15 min. to keep everything as cold as possible.
 
That looks like a good stuffer. I'm currently using the kitchen aide, grinder works great but the stuffing atachment is slow and cumbersome. Takes me and the wife to make it work okay. I might purchase the Dakota if I keep making sausage on a regular basis.

Not a bad little stuffer by the looks of it. You could also go with a lever style stuffer if you only do larger casings (don't bother for snack sticks or even breakfast sausage sized links. ) they run about 50 dollars.

A third option is the jerky Canon, which runs about 30 dollars iirc. It will only hold about a pound or so, but would work better for small batches than using a grinder as a stuffer.

Even with the stuffing plate, another pass through the grinder yields lesser quality sausage opposed to having a dedicated suffer.

I have a Dakotah water stuffer, which can hold about 10 pounds at a time. I'd like to replace it with a Cabelas stuffer eventually. Simply because I can get a motor for that one. Dedicated motorized stuffers are expensive.
 
That looks like a good stuffer. I'm currently using the kitchen aide, grinder works great but the stuffing atachment is slow and cumbersome. Takes me and the wife to make it work okay. I might purchase the Dakota if I keep making sausage on a regular basis.

It works really well. Just make sure you use solid shortening to grease the piston.

The only reason I want to get a vertical stuffer is so I can get a larger stuffer. My batches require refilling the stuffer 2 times of I am doing snack sticks or most of my sausage recipes and 3 or 4 refills when I do summer sausage.
 
Agree with all about the KA being not so good as a stuffer. Actually i dont think its a good grinder either. It kneads my pizza dough like no other though......

I got an LEM stainless handcrank w/metal gears and love it. I can toss the barrel in the freezer and control meat temps really well, especially when maiking franks with emulsified meat. Also, it will crank out a 5 lbbatch as fast as you can twist and tie off.
 
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