Meat grinders are beautiful machines that can complete almost every need for food preparation. It is a need in every modern kitchen to ease out the diet plan. A meat grinder is compatible with meat, fruits, nuts, and veggies without straining the motor. Also, you can send a few pulses and grains through the meat grinder to mill for required consistency.
With the help of several parts and attachments that come along with the meat grinder, you can do plenty of your favorite delicacies.
Hand crank traditional meat grinder has to be fixed on a sturdy wooden table where food grade durable plastic meat grinder can stay in place with the help of suction base. The parts of both the meat grinders differ from each other.
Parts of Electric Meat Grinder:
Grinder head:
Every component should be dismantled before fixing the grinder head. The grinder head must be the first part to be attached to the main body of the electric meat grinder.
The grinder head should be rotated into counterclockwise until it locks into place. After fixing the grinder head firmly, you can set the other parts as per the instruction manual of your electric meat grinder.
Grinding plates:
Grinding plates decide the texture of the meat that is to be obtained. Three different grinding plates come with the meat grinder. Fine, medium, and coarse grinding plates are used to get fine, coarse or medium ground meat.
The grinding plate will have several holes with a depression in one edge to lock to the machine. The number in the grinding plate denotes the size of the meat grinder.
The meat must be cleaned without any bone or tendons in it. If you don’t know the size of your meat grinder, you can measure the diameter of the grinding plate to find the size of the meat grinder.
The number of plates that come with the meat grinder may differ from each product. The plates are easily washable and can also be put in the dishwasher. It is always better to dry immediately after cleaning and also not to keep the dishes in the dishwasher overnight.
Cutting blade/knife:
Cutting knives that come along with your meat grinder is one of the essential parts that are used for mincing and chopping meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
Not every cutting blade can fit other machines. If you had lost or the real cutting knife of your meat grinder has blunt edges, then you can buy the cutting knife attachments that are sold separately.
While assembling the meat grinder, the edges of the cutting knife should face front to do its job.
Auger:
Auger is a significant part of a meat grinder. It helps in turning the meat around and grinding it eventually. Every meat grinder has its size of the auger. You may not be able to replace the auger of one meat grinder to another since some machine may not be compatible with the other auger and may harm your device.
The grinder head should be connected to the auger pin. And the other end of the auger should be connected to the cutting knife, grinding plate, and then the ring nut of an electric meat grinder.
If the order of assembling the parts is not proper, then the working of the machine will be skeptical and also may lead to some mishaps.
Sausage stuffing funnel:
Sausage stuffing funnel is used to make sausages, and the thickness of sausage depends on the sausage tube. Assembling a sausage tube is easy as joining the grinding plate. After keeping the stuffing spacer, you can fix the stuffing funnel and the ring nut and rotate it in the correct direction to fit every part correctly.
Pasta attachments:
Pasta attachments are not common add-ons with every meat grinder. Some meat grinder does not come with a pasta attachment, but you can avail the suitable pasta extruder that can do the job.
You can make many varieties of pasta like rigatoni, spaghetti and, linguine from the meat grinder pasta attachments. Pasta attachments are easy to fix like any other parts of the meat grinder.
The hole in the plate and the kind of hole decides the pasta type. You can choose your favorite shape to make your pasta.
Foot pedal:
Foot pedal is a rare part that comes along with the electric meat grinder. If you have a foot pedal, you can efficiently operate the electric meat grinder without stress.
You can use your hands for other actions like pushing the meat and collecting it in the container without the mess, and by the help of the foot pedal, you can operate the machine.
Stomper:
Stomper helps to push the meat into the feeding tube for easy and fast grinding. Most of the meat grinders will come with a stomper, or if you don’t get along with your machine, you can use a stomper like a kitchen utensil to push the meat into the tube.
Sometime when the machine is running, the meat might tend to pop out of the tray; that time, we can put all the meat together and make it easy using a meat pusher.
Tray:
Without the plate, you cannot start run the meat grinder. Only after you installed the tray, you can operate the meat grinder. The tray should be appropriately fixed to the grinder head.
The tray may be aluminum, food-grade plastic, or stainless steel tray. If it is an aluminum tray, then you should not soak in the water for a long time to avoid rusting.
Power cord:
Since electric meat grinder works in power supply, they have a cable that comes along with every electric meat grinder.
Bowls:
Some meat grinders come with a dish as an add-on, and some do not. It will be easy to collect the meat, fruits, and vegetables after they are crushed or minced in the meat grinder.
Juicing attachments:
As other add-ons, juicing accessories are found only in certain products. Before buying a meat grinder for making juice, you should find out the preferred meat grinder that has all the juicing parts.
Ring bolts:
Ring bolts are used to fix all the parts correctly and make them stay intact with other elements to do the grinding job easily.
Parts of Manual Meat Grinder:
Bolts and screws:
Bolts and screws of the manual meat grinder are necessary to fit them in a kitchen countertop or any wooden surfaces. If the bolts are not tightened correctly, then there are a lot of chances for unstable working.
Suction base:
With the help of the suction base, the meat grinder can stand in its place while grinding. The rubber base prevents the meat grinder from slipping down.
For proper suction and sturdiness, the meat grinder should be placed on a smooth surface. If placed on any rough countertop, then the meat grinder may move and cause disturbance while grinding the meat.
Hand crank:
Hand crank can be removed and re-installed very easily. With the help of the hand crank, you can quickly turn and grind the meat. The hand crank may be of food-grade plastic, aluminum, iron, or stainless steel; that depends on what type of manual meat grinder it is.
There is a turning accessory that will come along with the heavy-duty plastic manual meat grinder. It can be easily turned to open and lock the parts of the meat grinder.
There are also other parts similar to electric meat grinders such as grinding plates, cutting blades/knives, auger, bowls, pasta attachments, sausage stuffing attachments, and meat pusher.
Conclusion:
Each part should be installed precisely to do a stress-free grinding to make delicious meat delicacies. Starting from sausages to pasta, you can do anything of your wish. Electric meat grinders and manual meat grinders are different in operation as well as have different parts. But most of the attachments are similar types and not in size.
You cannot use any parts of an electric meat grinder to your manual meat grinder. Since the size of the components may not be matching with the other appliance, you may end up messing with the working.
Safety is an important thing when we work with machines; in that way, every one of us should follow the instruction manual and maintain healthy individual wellbeing. Cleaning of all the parts is vital before and after usage to avoid bacterial contamination.
References:
https://images.homedepot-static.com/catalog/pdfImages/50/501c3058-a9ec-4acd-9d13-ae7a2ee069a9.pdf
I want to buy a good electric meat grinder. I’m new to electric meat grinder. I would appreciate your help. Thanks