How to choose a meat grinder | Articles | Gadgets, gifts and accessories

If you like to cook, you prob­a­bly care about the qual­i­ty of the prod­ucts that end up on your table. In this case, most like­ly you pre­fer to use a meat grinder in the kitchen to pre­pare your own minced meat or grind oth­er prod­ucts. But among mod­ern meat grinders, choos­ing the right one is not very easy. We will tell you about the func­tions of home meat grinders and how to choose the right mod­el.

Source of power

Much in the process of choos­ing a meat grinder will depend on what kind of pow­er source for the device you pre­fer. For exam­ple, this will affect its func­tion­al­i­ty. The meat grinder can be man­u­al, that is, you have to turn the han­dle your­self and make more phys­i­cal effort. An elec­tric meat grinder will allow you to twist the meat at the touch of a but­ton.

Man­u­al meat grinders, of course, will cost less, while elec­tric meat grinders are sim­ply eas­i­er to oper­ate. In terms of size, man­u­al devices win — they are small­er, while elec­tric ones are more mas­sive and will take up more space in the kitchen. It all comes down to your pref­er­ence, so the first thing you need to decide is the type of meat grinder. After that, you can pay atten­tion to the rest of the char­ac­ter­is­tics.

Life time

A meat grinder is one of those appli­ances that is most often used on a non-dai­ly basis, but you cer­tain­ly want the device to last you as long as pos­si­ble. That is, you should choose a mod­el that can with­stand reg­u­lar use, while per­fect­ly trans­fer­ring stor­age. In most cas­es, among man­u­al meat grinders you will come across mod­els with a plas­tic case — they are cheap­er and do an excel­lent job with the main task. But their ser­vice life is short­er than that of met­al coun­ter­parts.

In the pro­duc­tion of elec­tric mod­els, both plas­tic and met­al are used. An alu­minum case is per­haps the best choice, as the met­al is spe­cial­ly treat­ed to with­stand long-term use. At the same time, in the process of wash­ing and stor­age, you can not be afraid of dam­age to the case or the appear­ance of scratch­es. This is very impor­tant, since the meat grinder is used to work with meat, that is, the tasks of the device are not the sim­plest.

Stainless steel knives

One of the most impor­tant parts in both man­u­al and elec­tric meat grinders are the cut­ting blades. It is this struc­tur­al ele­ment that is respon­si­ble for how the minced meat will turn out and how soon you will be able to grind meat or veg­eta­bles. There­fore, when choos­ing a meat grinder mod­el con­fig­u­ra­tion, pref­er­ence should be giv­en to mod­els with stain­less steel knives. This met­al has proven to be the most effi­cient and reli­able, as well as resis­tant to blunt­ing over time. It is worth not­ing the resis­tance to rust, which means that the meat will not receive unpleas­ant after­tastes and harm­ful par­ti­cles, and it will be much eas­i­er to clean the knives. Thus, it is stain­less steel that is best suit­ed for work­ing with food prod­ucts.

Ease of use

For your own con­ve­nience, it will be very impor­tant that the device you choose is easy to use. This also applies to the efforts made, so we rec­om­mend choos­ing elec­tric mod­els, and direct­ly con­trol­ling the meat grinder itself and its set­tings. Man­age­ment should be at least intu­itive, or with con­ve­nient and sim­ple instruc­tions.

If you are sure that you pre­fer a man­u­al mod­el, then you should pay atten­tion to a few points. One of them is the loca­tion of the han­dle rel­a­tive to the grid. This way you will under­stand how much meat will be under the knife while scrolling.

No less impor­tant are the size of the neck and grate of the meat grinder, again, for cal­cu­lat­ing load vol­umes and ease of oper­a­tion. If the meat grinder is dif­fi­cult to use or you can’t find a con­ve­nient place in the kitchen to use it, it is like­ly that the pur­chase will be a waste of mon­ey. To avoid this, you need to clear­ly eval­u­ate the con­ve­nience of the device.

Meat grinder cleaning

Clean­ing the meat grinder after using it is an extreme­ly unpleas­ant and very thank­less task. How­ev­er, this is a very impor­tant point, on which the ser­vice life of the device and the result of its use will depend. It is impor­tant to remem­ber that work­ing with raw meat requires an almost san­i­tary approach; oth­er­wise, you risk your own health. After use, with improp­er or inac­cu­rate clean­ing of the device, bac­te­ria and mold may appear on it, which, of course, is very dan­ger­ous in the next use. Again, stain­less steel knives, which are easy to clean, play a huge role here. It is also worth pay­ing atten­tion to the fact that the design of the meat grinder is as con­ve­nient as pos­si­ble: if pos­si­ble, try to wash all remov­able ele­ments that you can after use. Some mod­els can be washed in the dish­wash­er, which is a great option. Knives should be washed sep­a­rate­ly by hand. The most con­ve­nient design will allow you to clean the meat grinder with ease and not wor­ry about the result of clean­ing.

Accessories

I must say that even com­plete with a meat grinder there are use­ful acces­sories that are suit­able for use in the kitchen. The first thing you should pay atten­tion to is the pres­ence of addi­tion­al grat­ings. They allow you to choose the thick­ness of the meat in the minced meat, thus open­ing up var­i­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties. In most cas­es, there will be two grates — for stan­dard and coarse grind­ing. This is more than enough.

Some meat grinders are equipped with addi­tion­al attach­ments, such as attach­ment for home­made sausages. They allow you not only to grind the meat, but also to place it in the cas­ing of your choice. These noz­zles can be of dif­fer­ent sizes.

Anoth­er handy attach­ment is designed for mak­ing home­made pas­ta, and acces­sories can include addi­tion­al knives, food push­ers, and more. Pay atten­tion to the pack­age and note which of the acces­sories will be use­ful to you in every­day life.

Decide on a place in the kitchen

Kitchens are dif­fer­ent, includ­ing quite minia­ture ones, so you should def­i­nite­ly choose the right place for both stor­age and use of the meat grinder. Some will pick up a place on the counter, oth­ers — in the cab­i­nets. One way or anoth­er, it all depends on your require­ments for the device. Again, it is worth recall­ing that with a lack of free kitchen space, a man­u­al meat grinder will be an excel­lent choice. But in a large kitchen, you can com­fort­ably use an elec­tric one. Of course, do not for­get about safe­ty, make sure that the device is away from chil­dren or pets, pro­tect­ed from sim­ple and acci­den­tal acti­va­tion and stored in accor­dance with the require­ments.

The final deci­sion, of course, should be made armed with all the nec­es­sary knowl­edge. It all comes down to what kind of device will make your cook­ing process eas­i­er and life eas­i­er. Con­sid­er in advance the fre­quen­cy of use, the amount of cook­ing, and the dif­fer­ent types of food you plan to grind with the meat grinder.

Models of meat grinders

Red­mond RMG-1229 is a com­pact elec­tri­cal device that is suit­able for a small kitchen. At the same time, the meat grinder dif­fers in pow­er and wide pos­si­bil­i­ties. The body is made of durable plas­tic, safe for health, and the tray for meat or oth­er prod­ucts is also made of it. The kit includes a noz­zle for prepar­ing sausages, as well as two grids for fine and coarse grind­ing. The device weighs only 2.22kg, so it is con­ve­nient to use and trans­port. The pow­er of the meat grinder is 300W. It is worth not­ing that the con­trol of Red­mond is extreme­ly sim­ple: a few but­tons on the case. The device looks styl­ish and neat. This meat grinder will serve long and dili­gent­ly in any home.

Bosch is a sym­bol of reli­a­bil­i­ty in kitchen and house­hold appli­ances, which is why the Bosch MFW 67600 meat grinder com­bines qual­i­ty and pow­er. With its small size, this elec­tric meat grinder can eas­i­ly process up to 3.5 kg of meat in one minute. There­fore, the meat grinder is great not only for the home, but also for cater­ing estab­lish­ments or shops. The engine is equipped with an over­heat­ing pro­tec­tion func­tion, so the device copes with large vol­umes of prod­ucts. The meat grinder is easy to assem­ble and clean: all remov­able parts can be washed.

Bosch MFW 67600 has an addi­tion­al noz­zle for cook­ing sausages and two inter­change­able grids for minced meat of dif­fer­ent grind­ing. The body is made of plas­tic and met­al, and the tray is made of met­al. The device weighs 6.4 kg, which makes the meat grinder quite heavy, but it also pro­vides it with sta­bil­i­ty and pro­tec­tion from dam­age. Oper­a­tion is incred­i­bly sim­ple and clear, so Bosch MFW 67600 will be an excel­lent choice for your kitchen.