Can You Use a Meat Grinder to Grind Apples

A meat grinder helps a chef or home cook in multiple ways. It can grind mince the meat, juice the fruits, chop the nuts and vegetables, and can also mill soft grains. Meat grinder almost does the job of a food processor. It depends on the individual to choose the need for the appliance according to their requirements. In that way, the meat grinder also does the juicing job.

Not every meat grinder is preferred or made for juicing; there are specific meat grinders that also come with the juicing attachments. Both manual and electric meat grinders can crush the fruits or vegetables to extract juice from it.

For grinding meat, a meat grinder is a piece of cake but, doing other deeds with fruits and vegetables are also not hard if you own a little killer in your kitchen. During apple season and if you have apple trees in your backyard, you can enjoy making jams and apple juice with your meat grinder. But if you want to get a smooth apple jam, you need to peel off the skin and seeds and cut the apple into smaller chunks to run through the machine.

Softer the apple pieces are, the smoother the jam will be. You can store the juice and the jam by following the perfect recipes and store for later use or also can apply for small-scale commercial purposes.

Juicing apple sometimes may not yield you the right amount of juice for making apple cider when you use a meat grinder. So, you can use a hand presser or machine presser for complete extraction.

If you are looking for commercial benefits, then a meat grinder is not the right choice for using the best out of apples. You need to choose the best presser or approach a pressing outlet to get the best result. Many homes prefer food processors for making apple jams, which is also not a bad idea, but when you have a meat grinder, you are left with many options of utility.

Sometimes, frozen apple pieces run well through the meat grinder. You can also serve your pigs if you have a lot of apples in your house; they will enjoy eating the delicious fruit when it is minced. If you have a lot of bruised apples left out on the ground, you can mince them in your meat grinder and feed your pigs if they love the taste of the browned apples.

You can also grind the apples in the meat grinder to make beers if you are planning for the first try of brewing. Since apples are softer than grains and nuts, it is known that meat grinders can grind apples without difficulty.

But, the only concern during grinding apple in the meat grinder is, sometimes the juice overflow affects the motor, and there would be much leakage while collecting the juice if you don’t have a proper juicing attachment.

Advantages of using a meat grinder for apple:

  • Need not go for other machines to do grinding, mincing, or juicing.
  • Always stays as a substitute for a food processor.
  • Easy cleaning after juicing.
  • Cost-effective.
  • Slow grinding helps the nutrients stay packed.
  • Easy assembling of parts.
  • It can work for a long time without making the motor hot.
  • Easy operation.

Disadvantages of using a meat grinder for apple:

  • Juice might flow back to the motor housing.
  • Have to be careful to prevent juice leakages.
  • Juicing attachments are compulsory to extract the juice properly.
  • Cleaning might be hard if the juice flows back and can mess the kitchen countertop.
  • It cannot separate the seeds.
  • Not every meat grinder comes with the juicing parts.
  • Not preferable for commercial apple cider making.

If you are planning to prepare apple pies, then you can get a finely minced apple and cinnamon mixture for the filling. The freshly ground apple is a taste enhancer of any recipe, and the juice extracted at home is healthier and natural than the store-bought ones.

Conclusion:

Larger pieces of apples may take a longer time to be minced than smaller pieces. Even the hand crank meat grinder will not seem hard for any user to grind apples. Meat grinder will always produce a consistent end product.

If you want the apples to be minced into the excellent mixture, then you can use beautiful mincing plates, and when you want it to be coarse, you can use a coarse plate.

Finely minced apples can be sent through several times to get the right quantity of juice. Even when you don’t have juicing attachments, you can collect the finely ground apples and press it until you get the last drop of the tasty and fresh juice.

Meat grinder will not harm your fingers in anyways since the blades are away from the contact of your fingers. In case, if you are not satisfied with the outcome of grinding apples to make juice then, you can buy an exclusive grinder for apple.

If you want to make apple juice for making apple cider or beer, then you cannot depend on meat grinder since it may consume a lot of time and is not easy for large quantities.

References:

  1. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/kitchenaid-grinder-attachment-works-great-for-small-batches-of-apples.359441/
  2. http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/press/apple_grinder.html
  3. https://www.instructables.com/id/killer-apple-grinder/

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