My B-Day is coming up and my wife is looking for ideas. As I'm now making more sausage, I thought a dedicated 'good' grinder might be a decent idea. I've been using the Kitchen Aid grinder attachment on my 350 Watt (Max) stand mixer so far. For the amount I've been grinding to this point it's not without its minor annoyances, but overall it's been OK. The grinder that I am thinking about is the LEM #5 .25HP Big Bite ($249 on amazon)
My questions is - Will I notice a difference in going from the KA attachment to the LEM? My concern is that nominally speaking the .25 HP (188 Watts) is less than the 350 watt KA.... although the KA is a max rating, so who knows what the average wattage is when you're at grinding speed. Primarily, the things that sometimes bother me with the KA are:
- sometimes it doesn't really cut through excessive sinew and it then gums up the knives causing smearing,
- meat gets pushed out of the side of the plate collar which makes a minor mess,
- I get some black oily residue in the meat from the rubbing between the knives. auger end and plate,
- and lastly, the grind just doesn't seem as 'clean' and defined as the ground meat you see coming out of a commercial grinder.
If I 'upgrade' to the #5 LEM, will these things improve?
As to use - I occasionally will grind 8 to 16 pounds of pork shoulder for sausage... maybe once a month, if I get a deer, I will grind a fair amount of venison.... if I'm lucky, I will be grinding goose and duck breasts consistently during the hunting season.
PS. I will only be using the grinder for grinding as I already have the LEM vertical stuffer. Also, if anyone has any recommendations for a grinder in the same price range as the LEM #5... I'd be interested to hear those as well
Thanks in advance for your replies!
My questions is - Will I notice a difference in going from the KA attachment to the LEM? My concern is that nominally speaking the .25 HP (188 Watts) is less than the 350 watt KA.... although the KA is a max rating, so who knows what the average wattage is when you're at grinding speed. Primarily, the things that sometimes bother me with the KA are:
- sometimes it doesn't really cut through excessive sinew and it then gums up the knives causing smearing,
- meat gets pushed out of the side of the plate collar which makes a minor mess,
- I get some black oily residue in the meat from the rubbing between the knives. auger end and plate,
- and lastly, the grind just doesn't seem as 'clean' and defined as the ground meat you see coming out of a commercial grinder.
If I 'upgrade' to the #5 LEM, will these things improve?
As to use - I occasionally will grind 8 to 16 pounds of pork shoulder for sausage... maybe once a month, if I get a deer, I will grind a fair amount of venison.... if I'm lucky, I will be grinding goose and duck breasts consistently during the hunting season.
PS. I will only be using the grinder for grinding as I already have the LEM vertical stuffer. Also, if anyone has any recommendations for a grinder in the same price range as the LEM #5... I'd be interested to hear those as well
Thanks in advance for your replies!