Grinding Meat with KitchenAid Attachment

[motownbrowne]

[Note: We've split this discussion from a thread about cast iron, which can be found here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/767809 -- The Chowhound Team].

As far as I'm concerned there's nowhere safe from prion diseases, other than maybe not eating meat, esp. ground meat from factory farms where animals are being fed other animals. I'm not about to give up meat, but I feel like I have pretty good sources.

[Dave5440]

Thats why I started grinding all of my own meat, granted I didn't know the cow,pig,chicken,turkey but at least I control the piece I buy to grind

[c oliver]

Yep. AND it tastes so darn good, doesn't it?

[sunshine842]

(my butcher grinds to order. Even better, because I don't have to clean the grinder!)

[c oliver]

I have the KA attachment. It comes completely apart and is a breeze to clean. But grinding to order is great for those who don't want to 'mess' with it. I honestly can see EVER buying any kind of ground meat anymore. And, hey, you're in FRANCE where you can probably get ANYTHING. You dog :)

[escondido123]

Please tell me your secret for grinding with the KA attachment. I've used it twice and found it to be such a pain,..needed to cut and semi-freeze the meat to have it grind ok. And don't even get me started on the sausage attachment...it would have been quicker to stuff the casings by hand with a pastry bag. Unless I find a way to make the process easier, I will have my butcher grind the meat and then I've have to buy some plastic pastry bags to do the stuffing. Thanks for the help and sorry to be getting so off subject.

[c oliver]

Wow, I've had NO problem for about two years. I don't semi-freeze. I cut it in strips the approx. shape of the feeder tube. I use about the second lowest speed. I prediocically give it a little break so don't have to worry about over heating. I have the sausage stuffer attachement but I haven't used it cause I haven't found a local, affordale source of casings. Maybe alanbarnes will weight in on this. I'm really sorry you have problems. For me, there was practically no learning curve.

[escondido123]

My husband was just about foaming at the mouth trying to use it! Went online and read all sorts of horror stories akin to ours. We weren't trying to do some huge amount of meat, just 2 lbs.of pork. Ended up throwing half of it away. Maybe I'll start a new thread on this.

[c oliver]

You can probably search for existing threads. There are those who have different experiences than I do.

[I used to know how to cook...]

Hi Escondido123,

Not sure what type of problem you're having with your grinder and I don't have the KA so this might not apply.

That said, one thing I do know (and it's stressed in the instruction book for my very old and much used Oster grinder...) is all parts must be assembled tightly.

If the retaining ring is the least bit loose, food will lodge between the cutting blade and disk. If that happens you have to remove the grinder head, take it apart and clean it, then reassemble.

That was happening with mine. I also believe its because the cutting blade is getting dull. Lately I've been semi-freezing my cut chunks of meat and making sure everything is tightened down very well, which has helped a lot.

Lucy

[c oliver]

Ooh, a loooooong time ago there was a CH who bought a used grinding attachment and couldn't figure out what the problem was. it came without the cutting blade or as I described it "the X-thingy." problem solved.

[I used to know how to cook...]

Hi C Oliver,

Yeah... I can understand why no cutting blade might interfere just a teeny tiny bit with good grinding! :)

Lucy

[smtucker]

that was me! You can buy replacement x-thingies. Sharp is good.

[escondido123]

I found the earlier thread on this....thanks all of you for your help.

[I used to know how to cook...]

Hi SMTucker,

Dang... I would be delighted if I could buy a new cutting blade. Unfortunately, they don't seem to exist for my 35 year old Oster. I've been all over the Internet, even started a thread here. New ones simply do not exist.

I did learn, from the knife pros here, my old blade is sharpenable. Gives me hope!

Lucy

[c oliver]

It was??? Wow, time flies when you're having fun :)

[CuterieDad]

Butcher-Packer.com, for casings.

[alanbarnes]

What seems to be your problem with the KA attachment? I'll admit that it's less than ideal for high-volume grinding (one time I got carried away and made 30 pounds of pork sausage - it took **forever**). But for up to 5 or even 10 pounds it works like a dream. No muss, no fuss, no hassle.

When you were grinding, was there an inordinate amount of gristle in the meat? That's my chief problem - sometimes elastin-rich connective tissue will get tangled around the cutting blade. But that tends to happen after grinding a **lot** of meat - I've never seen it after just a couple of pounds.

Otherwise, my guess is that the cutting blade wasn't firmly seated on the worm shaft. You have to make sure the square tab goes into the square hole, then hold it all in place with the die.

Speaking of the die, that might be another possible source of the problem - you should be able to grind right through the fine die on the first go-through, but if you're having problems with that try using the coarse die and see if that fixes things.

Anyway, a properly assembled and used KitchenAid grinder does a great job and is very efficient for the quantities of meat you're talking about. IMO there's probably something wrong with the grinder you bought or the way you've assembled it.

[escondido123]

Thanks for the info. I will take a look myself...my husband is ready to throw it in the garbage.

[Dave5440]

It sure does, and I feel safe eating a pink beef burger, oh gawd

[c oliver]

Pink? I'm the rare girl myself.

[Dave5440]

For a burger pink, but for a slab of rib-eye or strip , raw is just fine with me

[c oliver]

Bob and I do this together for the last year or so. He cuts the 'strips' and I grind. We each pinch little bits of the ground beef. Oh yeah.

[sunshine842]

If you call it "tartare" it doesn't sound as trashy as eating raw hamburger.

[c oliver]

Noted to self :)