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The growing need to create specialty meat blends or even gourmet hamburgers at home is a growing trend and that making meat grinders indispensable. If you don’t really know much about the KitchenAid Stand Mixer Meat Grinder Attachment or how to care for your own, you are in luck. In this post, I’ll explain to you in details what you need to know about the KitchenAid meat grinder, the types, steps to care for it and most importantly, how best to use it.
What Is A Kitchenaid Meat Grinder?
Simply put, a meat grinder is a piece of equipment that transforms meat into flavourful ground meat for a variety of uses such as in hamburgers, sausages, cheese and so on.
It is an effective kitchen tool which can save you a lot of time and energy when cooking. If you have got lots of meat recipes and need something that would make your cooking time easier and faster, a KitchenAid meat grinder attachments are your best choice.
Note: The Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment is for those that already own a KitchenAid stand mixer. If you don’t own one yet then here’s a one (KitchenAid KSM180QHSD 100 Year Limited Edition Queen of Hearts Stand Mixer, Passion Red)I found on Amazon that is quite affordable.
Types Of Meat Grinders
Meat grinders come in sizes and different models depending on individual requirements. They can be electric or manual.
- Small meat grinders, whether electric or manual are relatively cheaper and affordable. The small meat grinders can either have stainless steel or plastic casing and blades depending on what uses one wishes them to serve.
- Small grinders for processing soft meat like chicken, lamb or even fish may have plastic blades and when tougher meat varieties or other hard substances need to be ground, those with stainless steel blades will do just fine.
- Similarly, the manual grinder does not process large chunks of meat or even meat from large animals like beef. Large or high-end commercial meat grinders can process plenty of chunks of meat and bones.
- Manual grinders are operated by rotating a shank that turns the grinding plates and do not require electricity.
- Additionally, the manual grinder can be used as a pasta extruder just by placing pasta dough on the top of the grinder and cranking away and it also has a suction cup attached securely to nonporous countertops so you can crank the handle without worrying for stability. Another advantage of the manual grinder and its parts is that they are dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.
As mentioned, the type bought is dependent on the use for which it is intended.
How To Use A Kitchenaid Meat Grinder
Using a grinder to grind your meat is quite easy. Here’s how to use them.
- Meat meant for grinding should be washed and placed in a refrigerator to get chilled and make the grinding easy.
- Cut the meat into smaller pieces so that it can be fed into the auger and subsequently into the grinder.
- Be sure to place a plate or dish under the spout of the grinder to collect the finished product.
- Pour your meat into your KitchenAid meat grinder and smoothly grind away.
Is The Kitchenaid Meat Grinder Good?
Now that you know what a KitchenAid Stand Mixer Meat Grinder Attachment is and how to use it at home, it should be easy for you to determine whether it is actually good for you or not.
If you ask me, they are very good and efficient and here are the reasons why:
- The KitchenAid meat grinder enables us to create extra flavour at home by rubbing bacon on the meat and even the grinder blades themselves to have varieties in our meals.
- The meat grinders can be used to process other things aside meat like oats, vegetables, salsa, cabbage or fish. This makes cooking a lot easier and faster.
- The KitchenAid meat grinders enable us to reduce expenses since commercially ground meat is much more expensive.
- The grinders are easy to use and maintain and they come as either manual or electric, big or small. So you have a range of choices to choose from.
What Size Is The Kitchenaid Meat Grinder?
Kitchenaid meat grinders can either be big or small. The small ones with small electric motors, however, cannot grind very strong substances and they can be electrically driven or manual. The large ones expectedly, come with big electric motors and are able to grind even very hard and tough substances. They are heavy and cumbersome which makes them take a lot of space, though they can be difficult to handle. The small KitchenAid grinders are small and comparatively light and can fit into cupboards or drawers and can even sit on tabletops.
How To Clean A Kitchenaid Meat Grinder Attachment
Cleaning a KitchenAid meat grinder is a tedious but essential exercise. Your grinder just have to be neat and free of ingredients at all times. This is to prevent it from rusting or staining fast. For this reason, let me put you through a step by step procedure of cleaning it:
STEP 1
When it is time to clean the equipment, the first step is to dismantle the grinder by taking out the parts and keeping them securely in a bowl or any container. You need to do this with great care to avoid losing anyone in the process and to avoid damage to any of the parts. Have it in mind that replacing a lost part can be a difficult process.
Also, if you are using an electrical grinder, you don’t need to touch the area where the wires are located.
STEP 2
Next, the disassembled parts should be soaked in a solution of soapy water and vinegar for a period of about half an hour (30 minutes). This is to enable the meat and other ingredients still on it to get soft and become easy to remove, or even fall off on their own.
STEP 3
Once you’ve waited long enough and have given the meat and other ingredients enough time to soften on the disassembled parts, take out one part at a time from the soaking bowl and brush each clean with a cleaning brush or sponge. Special attention should be given to the blades and other parts that come in contact with what you grind. This is because there will be a lot of ingredients sticking to it.
STEP 4
Depending on whether the grinder has been kept long without washing after the last use, you may have to repeat soaking and brushing a few times for thoroughness until satisfaction is assured. Be sure to stop after you have noticed that there’s no food ingredient sticking anywhere on the grinder.
STEP 5
After this and if you are satisfied there’s no grit or stains left on the parts, you can then go ahead and rinse them thoroughly to remove all soap leftover.
STEP 6
Now you can get all the parts and wipe them clean with a towel one by one. The towel you will use must not be dirty to avoid contaminating it. Most importantly, the parts must be towel dried well to avoid rusting especially in the case of steel blades. Wherever rust is observed on the blades, they must be scraped out carefully and thoroughly. Ensure there’s no water left as that can cause rusting fast.
STEP 7
After towel drying them, take them to an airy place and kept to air dry. Water and oxygen must be present before rusting can take place and so the importance of air drying cannot be overemphasized.
STEP 8
Finally, reassemble the parts if you wish to use the grinder immediately after cleaning but otherwise store the dismantled clean parts properly until when next you wish to use them before assembling. The reason for this is to prevent rusting too and stiffness.
How Do You Assemble a Kitchenaid Meat Grinder?
After cleaning your meat grinder and you want to assemble it, you can do that yourself even without expert skill. Make sure you have washed your meat grinder, rinsed it, towel-dried, air-dried all of the parts and you are ready to use it.
To assemble or reassemble your KitchenAid meat grinder, here are what you need to do:
- If you are using an electric meat grinder, check to ensure that the power cord is not plugged before you begin the assembly.
- Get the part that looks like a ‘T’ and place it into the enclosure on the front of the Kitchenaid meat grinder.
- Next, pick the screw pushing bar and insert it into the ‘T’ part.
- Put the knife over the square narrow part at the exposed end of the ‘T’ part.
- Put the grinding plate over the knife and make sure the tabs of the plate and the notches of the body are matching.
If you are ever confused about anything, you can always consult the Kitchenaid meat grinder’s manual. For this same reason, it’s usually recommended that you don’t do away with the handbook accompanying the grinder because there is valuable information about your grinder which you will find in it.
Is The Kitchenaid Meat Grinder Dishwasher Safe?
If you have a dishwasher and you are wondering if you could just throw your grinder in there, the honest answer to this question is yes and no. Some parts of the grinder are dishwasher safe while some other parts are not. For instance, the body and the ring of the grinder, including the part where the food is pushed from, are all dishwasher safe. The metal blade and plates, on the other hand, require that you hand-wash them.
How Do You Grind Burger With A Kitchenaid Mixer?
The best flavour and juiciness of burgers is achieved by grinding chuck or a mixture of chuck and round. Chuck is beef that has the advantage of containing the most fat and is also cheaper or easier to grind. Round, on the other hand, is beef that contains less fat and is also described as lean meat.
When round is being ground for a burger, a little suet (hard fat from around the kidneys of cows or sheep) should be added or else the grind or mixture will be too dry. If you wish to use lamb for a burger, then it is advised to grind shoulder meat or boned arm and blade chops.
Lamb meat or mutton because of its texture should be run into the grinder once but beef at least twice. In the case of turkey and chicken, you may use gizzard, wings or chicken thighs for burgers. Remember that the meat should be chilled in a refrigerator before using it as this helps with the grinding process. And don’t forget to also cut it into smaller pieces.
If fat sticks in the grinder, run a few pieces of bread to clear it out. If you are using a manual grinder and the handle becomes tough to turn, loosen the screw on the other end of the auger to smoothen it. For burgers, experiment with different cuts of meat until you find the right flavour that you prefer.
Does The Kitchenaid Meat Grinder Grind Bones?
If you have ever wondered if your Kitchenaid meat grinder can grind meat, then it might interest you to know that yes the grinder can grind bones. You can mostly achieve this with grinders that have powerful electric motors because less expensive models may not be able to process bones and occasionally, their motors can overheat.
Large electric models with powerful motors, long feed tubes and heavy-duty plates are the types that grind bones. To be able to grind bones with your own Kitchenaid meat grinder, you need to ascertain whether the model you have or are planning to buy, is produced for such.
Conclusion On How To Use Kitchenaid Meat Grinder
Since a Kitchenaid meat grinder is usable in processing other substances as well and not just grinding meat, it shows how desirable it is in any well-equipped kitchen.
Whether we are planning to own one or we already have one, it’s important that you should arm yourself with enough information regarding how to maintain and care for it. This way it will continue to do its work in making sure our menus are highly enticing.
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