How to Use a Hand Crank Meat Grinder?

A meat grinder is a beautiful invention by humans for every kitchen that cooks the meat. Hand crank meat grinders are the first meat grinder that was created before all the modernized motor-driven meat grinders. Hand crank meat grinder gives nutritious ground meat with a lot of retained moisture with a soft texture.

A manual meat grinder is a cheapest and excellent machine to grind the meat. Store-bought minced meat is easy to cook but, when you grind meat at home, you will be benefited in many ways.

The manual meat grinder is not only meant to grind meat but also vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts. They can be used to prepare pasta, burgers, kubbe and many more delicacies.

There are varieties of hand crank meat available in the market, and all have the same working. It is simple to use a hand crank meat grinder; since there is no electricity used to grind meat, you can easily control the operations manually whenever required.

Even beginners can effortlessly work with the manual meat grinder. For weak hands, turning the hand crank is quite tricky other than that if you want to buy a meat grinder in less cost, you can go for a manual meat grinder to do wonders in the kitchen.

Parts of the Manual Meat Grinder:

Let us know the parts of the manual meat grinder,

Grinding plate: Grinding plates are used to grind the meat in the required texture and the texture depends on the holes in it. There are various sizes of plates available which can be used according to your needs.
Chopping knife: The chopping or the cutting blade is one of the major parts to get the minced meat quickly. The blade must be sharp to make your grinding faster without a mess.
Auger: Auger is a spiral rod which is responsible for pulling the meat and sending it to the knife for mincing.
Hopper: Hopper is the funnel-shaped part of the manual meat grinder to which we drop the meat. Before adding the meat into the hopper, the user should cut the meat into pieces and remove the bones to grind seamlessly.
Ring: The locking ring is the part that is used to lock all the components responsible for grinding.
Handle: The handle is the part in which the user has to turn around to grind the meat. If the handle is ergonomically designed, it will be easy to turn without much pain.
Screw and clamp: The screw is used to secure the handle to make the grinder work properly where the clamp is used to fix the hand crank meat grinder on the smooth kitchen countertop.

The Practice Followed to Assemble the Parts:

Assembling a manual meat grinder requires patience. Your manual meat grinder will work like a charm if you properly fit the parts.

Make sure all the parts are dry and clean. Follow the instruction manual to assemble all the major components by the step by step instructions. The elements such as the grinding plate, cutting knife and the auger have to be placed to fit the main body. The locking ring should be tightened to hold every part in place.
The handle is one of the essential parts that have to be appropriately fitted. After placing the handle check for the mobility to turn quickly. After it is correctly assembled, lock it with the screw.
After the hand crank meat grinder is assembled entirely the central aspect that is to be taken care of is the surface on which the meat grinder is going to be fixed. The surface should be smooth with no roughness on it to fit the clamp tightly. If the meat grinder is shaky, then you cannot prepare the minced meat without stress. So, care should be taken while placing the machine.

How to Use the Hand Crank Meat Grinder:

After fixing the parts and placing the hand crank meat grinder on the tabletop or kitchen countertop, you can start using it for grinding the meat.

Just by adding the meat pieces into the hopper you can turn the handle to get the minced meat. The auger, grinding plate, and the knife will do the entire job when you turn the handle.

Meat grinders and meat are always preferred to be cold to avoid the melting of fat.
You can use a meat pusher to send the meat to the auger.
The grinding plate and the cutting knife should be sharp enough to get excellent and neat pieces of meat and fat mixture.
If you are not satisfied with the output, you can run through the machine until you get your desired ground meat.
If the blade and the knife are blunt, you may get chewy and smashed ground meat.
If the meat has a lot of water in it, you may end up with a messy and soggy minced meat. So, it is always better to grind the cold meat.
Keep the container close to the machine to collect all the juices from the meat.
You can even use the manual meat grinder for juicing, but the only drawback is that you will end up in a messy working place.

Common Problems:

While using the hand crank meat grinders, you may expect some typical issues such as,

The physical strain.
If the handle and the meat grinder is not fixed correctly will result in discontent while grinding.
Blunt knife and blade can give chewy meat. In that case, you need to sharpen it or get a new one.
The smell from the old meat or fat stuck from the previous grinding. Every time after the use you should run the grinder by adding few bread pieces to clean the left out meat and fat particles.
Grinding hard bones is really a difficult task with a manual meat grinder.
To remove the remains from the head and the inner areas will be difficult and you can clean it by placing all the parts in warm soapy water and wash it after 30 minutes.
All the parts must be dried out thoroughly after every wash.

Conclusion:

Using a manual meat grinder is easy and stress-free if you follow the necessary instructions and procedures to work with it. While adding the meat pieces to the hopper, you need to be careful from not touching the auger and also, you need to be cautious while cleaning since the plate and the knife of the meat grinder will be very sharp and can easily cut the fingers.

Assembling the parts of an electric meat grinder is more comfortable than manual meat grinder but if you correctly do it, using a manual meat grinder will be very easy and you will not need any electric meat grinder.

The most significant advantage of using the hand crank meat grinder apart from no electricity consumption is that you can control the operation at any point in working and adjust to your need.

Even after heavy use, manual meat grinders will not wear out. The durability of a manual meat grinder is the most significant plus. Anyone can use the hand crank meat grinder and there are no limitations for the knowledge.

References:

https://www.ehow.com/how_5558329_use-hand-operated-meat-grinder.html

https://www.zentiz.com/step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-assemble-a-manual-meat-grinder/

Image Source: 1 2