The real reason I bought my vintage meat grinder

[58limited]

Hamburgers! I bought my Hobart 4312 meat grinder with the intention of making a custom burger blend but, since it arrived during hunting season, I got sidetracked with processing game for friends and with making sausage. Finally, during the COVID lock down in April, I made my burger blend. Hit the nail on the head the first try. I've made burgers, meatballs (Swedish and Italian), meat loaf, and Bolognese sauce with this blend. All turned out great!


I blended brisket, chuck roast, and short rib meat. This is probably a 65/35 lean to fat ratio but could be 60/40. The burgers are so danged good and juicy. Here are the ones I made yesterday, served with white cheddar, a fire roasted Anaheim pepper, spicy Whataburger ketchup, and pepper jack boudin:



Here is the blend:

14.2 lb packer brisket, low choice grade and untrimmed (43.3%)
10.2 lb chuck roast (31.1%)
8.4lb short rib meat (25.6%)

Cubed, mixed, and ground with a 3/8 plate, mixed again and ground with a 3/16 plate.

Price came to $4.08/lb.

[HouseHomey]

Jerod Broussard

Gawd man!!! I’ve been grinding brisket ever since JRod suggested it with a pound of bacon.

But anything off that forequarter is gonna be beefy for sure.

love this.

[Ahumadora]

58limited. When are we going to turn that old bucket o bolts into an offset pit with fins??

[58limited]

Pit under the hood, salad bar in the trunk?

[Ahumadora]

I was thinking more firebox in the trunk and parrilla under the hood.

[luvthemstillers]

Awesome looking burgers!

[barelfly]

Outstanding! Thanks for sharing the mix as well! That’s gotta be full of flavor!

[Uncle Bob]

I like it!!!

[HawkerXP]

Show us the grinder!

[58limited]

HawkerXP See this thread for pics and vids: https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...ther-equipment

[HawkerXP]

Thanks!

[BFlynn]

That sounds delicious!
Do you deliver to Houston?

[58limited]

If the price is right: I like beer, BBQ, and whisky (not necessarily in that order).

[BFlynn]

I have plenty of beer and bourbon.

After seeing your posts, not sure you'd be impressed with my bbq, but I'm sure we can work it out.

[IFindZeroBadCooks]

Nice work!

[58limited]

I decided to bump this post instead of making a separate post since it is basically just me using my grinder to make meaty ambrosia for the grill. I'm down to two packs of ground beef and I'm out of venison/beef blend so I decided to remedy that today.

The other reason I decided to do this is that my freezer went out a week ago (fixed, it was the evaporator fan motor) and as I hurriedly shifted frozen foods around to save them I was reminded that I have some venison that hasn't been used yet: mostly stew type meat and other cuts usually used for sausage or grinding. I also had a prime brisket in there. It is over a year old: price was $2.98/lb. Now at HEB that brisket would be about $5.99/lb the last time I looked. I needed some extra beef so my local Market Basket has chucks on sale, almost 30% less than HEB. They are select Black Angus but looked really good: I may go get more.

Added to this are the trimmings from the Creekstone Farms ribeye roasts that I dry aged last month, some fat trimmings, and some brisket trimmings I had frozen awhile back as well.

Here is the breakdown:

Brisket: 10.8 lbs
Chuck: 7.57 lbs
Venison: 16.7 lbs
Dry aged pellicle: 5.1 lbs (mostly lean, fat reserved for later use)
Brisket trim: 2.9 lbs, about 30% lean
Beef fat: 2.9 lbs

Total: 45 3/4 lbs.

Chuck roasts. My phone is more of an industrial use phone (you can run over it with a truck) and not really the best for photography. These roasts are a beautiful red color that doesn't come through in the pictures:



The brisket. I used my new Hammer Stahl 10" chef's knife to cube the meat.



Look at the marbling of the point!



Venison up top with the fat spread over it. Beef below. Both are coarse ground. Switched grinding blades and put the grinder back into the freezer. Will mix and regrind when the grinder is cold again. I package my hamburger in 1 lb packs. You can buy premade vacuum bags - costs a little more but saves time and wear and tear on the vacuum sealer. I didn't think about that. So, off to make 45 bags with the vacuum sealer...




Mixing. Yep, that's all 45+ pounds of meat.



And grinding again.



45 lbs vacuum sealed.



"But wait!" you ask. "There was 45.75 lbs of meat, where is the other 3/4 lbs?" Don't worry, I have a plan for that this evening:

Aftermath: The burger was delicious!


Also, The ground meat takes up way less freezer space. All 45 lbs on the top shelf plus 5 quarts of soups and stocks. The only things that were not in the freezer before processing were the chuck roasts.

[Uncle Bob]

Excellent!!!

[holehogg]

That's a good few hours of work but lot's of reward.