kitchen aid mixer add on meat grinder

[JKEEN33]

Have one and use it for small, softer things in small batches.  Works great for clams and grinding vegetables (for canned relish or soup). can't imagine using it for making hamburger.  It's worth having just for clam chowder at my house.

Just imagine a hand grinder, then the kitchen aid seems awesome. 

I still use my great great grandmas hand grinder on clams and small one pound grind items. They are a great tool to have.

[NRA4LIFE]

I seen one on Amazon for $35 I think.  I sadly gave mine away a number of years ago.  I'm also thinking about buying another one just for those small jobs.  You can put almost all the parts in the dishwasher too.

Quad, now you're thinking.  That ain't just a hat rack on your shoulders I guess.

[The100Road]

I've been very happy with mine, but I only do small batches (less than 10 lbs). So I think it's highly dependent on what you're looking for. Small batches - great. Big batches - frustrating.

[DaveMonti]

I just used mine last weekend to do about 5 lbs of venison.  For $40 it worked great and it's cheap (we already had a kitchenaid mixer, just bought the grinding kit).  As long as the meat is cold there are no issues.  I mixed it with about 20% ground pork and turned out great. 
All the meat I had for grind, I cut into strips and froze.  When I want some ground meat, I just pull out a package of the strips (can use them for stew meat as well), buy a pound or two of ground pork or pork shoulder, and get to grinding.  Easy to clean in the dishwasher and didn't require a huge investment.

Now, if I get an elk and want to get all the grinding done at once, I'll buy a bigger unit. 

If you don't have a kitchen aid mixer, you can find non-commercial grade mixers for considerably cheaper than the commercial grade ones.  Remember, Commercial Grade stuff is made for very frequent use.  The Cabelas Deluxe Meat Grinder is 750W is a one HP machine for less than $200, which is fine for doing a few animals a year.  The Cabelas Commercial Grade 1 HP is $500, but you can probably do a few deer a DAY and it will last for years.

I realize we all like the VERY BEST when it comes to our stuff, but there is no way a real commercial grade mixer is needed for a few animals a year. 

[quadrafire]

I seen one on Amazon for $35 I think.  I sadly gave mine away a number of years ago.  I'm also thinking about buying another one just for those small jobs.  You can put almost all the parts in the dishwasher too.

Quad, now you're thinking.  That ain't just a hat rack on your shoulders I guess.

[dscubame]

Done it, not fun.  Worked but took alot of work.  Don't do it anymore.

[DoubleJ]

Research your model ahead of time and make sure you can buy the strip-gear for it.  There's a nylon gear in there meant as a fail-safe and if the load gets too heavy, that gear will strip out and you'll have to replace it.  Unfortunately, I know this from breaking my wife's grinding a deer and facing the wrath of it being out of commission for 2 weeks while I waited for the part

[Boss .300 winmag]

Research your model ahead of time and make sure you can buy the strip-gear for it.  There's a nylon gear in there meant as a fail-safe and if the load gets too heavy, that gear will strip out and you'll have to replace it.  Unfortunately, I know this from breaking my wife's grinding a deer and facing the wrath of it being out of commission for 2 weeks while I waited for the part

Wow, how did you load it up enough to strip that? 

[DoubleJ]

Research your model ahead of time and make sure you can buy the strip-gear for it.  There's a nylon gear in there meant as a fail-safe and if the load gets too heavy, that gear will strip out and you'll have to replace it.  Unfortunately, I know this from breaking my wife's grinding a deer and facing the wrath of it being out of commission for 2 weeks while I waited for the part

Wow, how did you load it up enough to strip that? 

It was about the 3rd deer I had put through it over a few years.  In our house, loins and backstap is all that is steaked.  The rest is ground so I sent a lot of meat through it.  And I was probably moving too fast and asking it to do a lot of work it wasn't meant to do

Lesson was learned.  I fixed the kitchenaid and got a dedicated grinder and never looked back.

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,107058.msg1398599.html#msg1398599

[NOCK NOCK]

If you are wanting to try one out, I have an older one that I would let you have (bought a new one). The housing has a crack in it, but still works.
A quality grinder is a great investment though. We use ours for lots of things other than wild game.
Ground pork burger from shoulders or discounted pork cuts, sausage, ground chicken/turkey, etc.
We have a 1/2hp cabelas commercial grinder, comes with an attachment for stuffing, works fairly well.

[lokidog]

The newer plastic housing ones have a really crappy pressed steel blade. The older style aluminum housing ones have much better machined blades. I've been using one for about 35 years with no problems. I do think the meat needs to be "cleaner" though as the tough sinew will eventually clog the cutter and have to be cleaned mid grind.

I misplaced my blade years ago and found a second one (older style) on ebay, I recently came across the blade and could loan it to you to try out.

[biggfish]

I use one mostly as a sausage stuffer and to run fat trim though to add to sausage. I usually have most of my deer ground at the butcher, then make stuff at home. It works I've run high meat volume through it, it was great but I also had a hand grinder for many years. I can tell you the food tray attachment to add to the grinder volume is a waste for meat, so plan for a tedious task of small amounts of meat down the tube.

[shadowless_nite]

I don't think it's worth the money.... and it wears out the kitchen aid pretty good. Me and a friend both had our mixers get significantly louder after using them for making burgers.

I ended up cheaping out, bought the harbor freight meat grinder. It was like $30 after their usual 20% coupon. Works great and at a decent speed for 2 people working with one feeding the grinder and the other trimming and prepping pieces to feed. So far we've put through 4 whole deer and one elk without any issue. I'd say it was worth it especially since it probably saved my kitchen aid.