Need Advice....Grinder Size

[Wacenturion]

KF....you'll most likely have a chance to use your new Carivore before I use mine, so when you do that hog, start a new thread and give us all a Carivore review with pictures....if you would.

[huntingbaldguy]

I honestly get by perfectly fine with the Cabelas Pro Grinder.  We double ground 40 lbs of deer in less than half an hr with fat and mixing and all that.  That said i'm a bigger is better guy too and the commercial one will probably last longer.  Past the Pro Grinder, i seriously doubt it saves you any time though, especially if grinding alone.  You may need 2 people slapping meat up in the trey for you with the commercial.

[Bean Counter]

I have the 3/4 Commercial. Love it to death. Reverse function sounds interesting but I honestly don't know what you'd use it for 

[bobcat]

As far as I know, the only time reverse is needed is if the grinder gets jammed and can't go forward anymore. Switch it into reverse and un-clog it. But honestly I'm not sure I've ever needed to do so in the 6 years or so that I've been using my Cabelas 1 hp grinder. Maybe once. But I definitely think you could get by without it, and obviously you do!

[Wacenturion]

As far as I know, the only time reverse is needed is if the grinder gets jammed and can't go forward anymore. Switch it into reverse and un-clog it. But honestly I'm not sure I've ever needed to do so in the 6 years or so that I've been using my Cabelas 1 hp grinder. Maybe once. But I definitely think you could get by without it, and obviously you do!

Correct, not a big deal.  The main reason for the 1 hp or larger for me was the increased throat size.

[The Weazle]

As far as I know, the only time reverse is needed is if the grinder gets jammed and can't go forward anymore. Switch it into reverse and un-clog it. But honestly I'm not sure I've ever needed to do so in the 6 years or so that I've been using my Cabelas 1 hp grinder. Maybe once. But I definitely think you could get by without it, and obviously you do!

Yeah, I have had mine (1HP) for over 5 years, and never used reverse.  The foot pedal and the burger press attachment are awesome.  I finally stepped up to a vertical stuffer, and wow.  The only thing I will buy in the future is a mixer.  we use our hands right now, and that is getting a little old, and I feel that we could do a better job with better spice distribution with a mixer.

[KFhunter]

I'll let you know how my mixer does,  I think it'll do great. It arrived already and it's a beast, going to take a big drill to move that around in the meat for sure but I've got a 1/2 dewalt that's pretty robust.

The image is misleading, it's big and heavy duty. It's mot made for food, but it's chromed so should be OK long as nothing is flaking off. Nickle chrome has been used for years and no one can claim any nickle leaching into food, and it's very acid resistant and inert.  Easy to clean too, I read a lot of reviews on mixers and everyone claims they're a bugger to clean and for small batches not worth the hassle of digging out.  This giant egg beater will be simple to clean!


Posted it on page one, cost me like 8 12 bucks.  If nothing else I'll have concrete to mix eventually.   



update:
This thing is a beast and you better have a pretty robust tub or bucket.  I was using a cheap walmart tub and it cracked the sides, with a better tub though it really blends well.  I think you could almost froth the meat 

[Wacenturion]

I'm sure it will work just fine.  Didn't think of that.  Have one similar I used for mixing grout.  Glad I ordered the Cabelas mixer the night I did as it went up the next morning.  Be interested to hear how yours works. 

[KFhunter]

I got a bunch of food grade 55 gallon drums I bet would be handy for large batch of sausage.  I'd soap them out and toss in a thick food grade liner.


hrm

[Fungunnin]

I got a bunch of food grade 55 gallon drums I bet would be handy for large batch of sausage.  I'd soap them out and toss in a thick food grade liner.


hrm

Cut them in half so you don't kill yourself trying to reach the bottom.

[KFhunter]

Just talking to a buddy of mine who used to be a butcher said I better get my seasoning figured out before I used a 55 gallon barrel 

voice of reason


Be handy for whole hog marinating too 

http://www.amazon.com/Gallon-Clear-Plastic-Liners-Grade/dp/B0189N0BGM/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1449362548&sr=8-7&keywords=55+gallon+drum+food+grade+liner

[KFhunter]

Thinking about permanently mounting the grinder motor on a cart

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200623961_200623961



The base of the grinder is 8x16 so plenty of room on the cart top, I would remove the drawer that came with the carnivore and mount it on the underside of the cart shelf. 

[Wacenturion]

Looks like that might make things easy to move around when needed.  Wonder how heavy/sturdy the cart is?

[KFhunter]

Looks like that might make things easy to move around when needed.  Wonder how heavy/sturdy the cart is?

36lbs shipping weight, take 6 lbs off for the box and it's still a pretty heavy cart.  It's a welding cart..gotta be strong enough.   Only problem I thought of for you is you got the mixer attachment.  Turns out I had another cart in the shop that worked well for me.   I had 2 taller sawhorses so I laid 3 boards aross 2x6 8 foot long boards then put a full sheet of 3/4 plywood I already had and screwed it all down to the sawhorse then covered it all in butcher paper and stapled down the ends.   I had a big commercial cutting board I used to debone on. 

[KFhunter]

The grinder is awesome, very pleased with the performance.   I ran that entire hog through it today and the collar never even got warm where that warning sticker is that say's "extended use this area may get hot" so I monitored it and it never got more than luke warm.  The freezer packs that wrap around the unit work very well and kept it ice cold the whole time. 

I managed to stop the grinder once and I wasn't near the power button so it sat there for a little bit locked up solid humming, probably 15 seconds.  I hit the reverse and it ran backwards then I hit forward and it spit out some bone and made some crunching noises then cleared up.  So I began stuffing again, I could see some smoke coming out of the grinder plate.  No idea how a bone got in there but with a large throat and shoving big pieces of meat it's bound to happen I guess.  I never cleaned it out once though just kept running and running unless I took a break for a bit.  I smelled the motor end and didn't smell any hot electrical smells or smoke from the motor. 

At the end of the day I cleaned it all out and couldn't see anything wrong at all, I found some bone fragments just under the grinder plate.  A little bit of silver skin and stuff wadded up around the tip but not very much surprisingly as I ran the forearms through there whole.  I was cutting up meat about the size of whole elk back straps and running it through.  (OK, maybe larger deer  )

I removed the plastic stuffing guard, that sucked.  The stuffer ram can't be used without the plastic guard though as the auger will grab the stuffer ram and try to eat it.  It doesn't just bounce on top the auger like my kitchen aid.

All in all I gave this machine a work out and it was flawless, quiet and did me a great job.  I was able to work it, but couldn't bog it down significantly even with long strips of cold hog fat the size of a back strap.  I've got about 250+ lbs of sausage waiting for seasoning now.
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