do any of you grind your own meat for hamburgers and what cut do you use? we've had just

R

randi

Well-known member
awefull stuff from the markets lately so I picked up a chuck roast yesterday and ground it for bugers.

first, I should have used the smaller die on it as I had a hard time keeping them together in the pan. the chuck was certainly moist, unlike the dry, tasteless ground meat I've been getting, but lacked the flavor.

Don thinks sirloin would be best but I'm not sure if it has a high enough fat content. any suggestions?

TIA

 
Randi when I grind mine and there isn't

enough fat, I will mix in a couple slices of bacon as I'm grinding. Also, I think a mix of cuts gets the best flavor, some chuck, sirloin, round, etc.

 
I was considering adding bacon but wasn't sure if that was the best way to go. the chuck was really

tastelesss but I'll just bet bacon would fix that smileys/smile.gif

I'll try the mix of meats next time. what I like about grinding my own is I can finally have a burger on the rare side... woohoooo!

 
A mix I got from Fine Cooking magazine is 1 lb ground chuck to 5 ounces ground sirloin. I don't

grind it myself, but buy the ground meat from a butcher shop. It makes wonderful burgers. I've bought it from Whole Foods, but they only label the meat by percent of fat and I found the burgers weren't as juicy and tasty as the ones made with the meat labeled by cut at the butcher shop. Every burger I've made with supermarket ground meat had me eating around bone fragments and gristle. I hate that. Am I shopping at the wrong supermarkets?

 
Ergo, one of my basic tenets of life: Adding bacon. Works for everything except

bad hair days (1961 to present).

 
Alton Brown just did a show on grinding your own hamburger. He used a 50/50 mix of...

...sirloin and chuck.

He trimed the meat and cut it into 1 1/2 inch cubes. He pulsed the meats separately in a food processor for 10 pulses. Then he loosely combined the meats with kosher salt into patties.

He also uses an old hand crank grinder. I have my Mom's old grinder, and I plan to mix chuck and round steak later today. We'll see!

Oh, and I think he ground the meat twice through the hand crank in order to get the grind he liked.

Michael

 
remember frying up a 1/2 lb of bacon and then frying your eggs in the fat and slipping

the eggs with some bacon fat on buttered toast? just a little slice of heaven!

as for bad hair days, that would be a hat and chocolate '-))

 
the markets just don't have the quality anymore. I don't know what they use in their

ground meats that makes them so tasteless and dry, even with the 20% fat that I was buying. since I have the grinder attachment for my kitchenAid, it's just as easy for me to grind my own. at least I'm very sure of what I have in the burgers.

I did get a package of ground buffalo meat that made a great burger.

 
let us know how your's turns out. I already had the burgers in the pan when

I thought about grinding it twice. this was my first try at grinding for burgers and I think I'll continue. I have about a pound of chuck roast left and I'll get some sirlion and some bacon and experiment more this weekend.

thought I had an easy, quick dinner last night which included my potato salad. last potato salad, DH said they were too thick. used a V-slicer and DH said they were too thin..... bottom line, I had a bowl of potato salad that he refused to eat :-0

husbandcide came to mind but then, why let him off easy when I can keep him around and tourture him appropriately! '-))

 
I added bacon to the last batch of sausage I made cause the pork didn't have enough fat. dang they

were good!

 
I asked this same question on the old board and Charlie answered. Like Curious I got gristle in our

ground sirloin even, it was awful! And I shop at the best grocer in town! Soon after my whole food grocer, Rollin Oats, started offering meats
and I no longer have gristle anywhere.

I'm not sure of this but I think my grocery store must have gotten a lot of complaints because their meat has stared looking better than what I used to complain to myself about.

 
Randi, they use whatever is handy.

I talked to one of the meat guys and they use all of the trimmings to all of the beef, and they add the about to expire beef (as well as putting it in a marinade and repackaging it).

The reason he told me was I was demanding to know where the marked down beef went when the date runs out. Valid question because they don't sell everything by the sale by date. I always bought that for stock. It's now turned into hamburger. Freshly ground!

 
oh yuck-a-pooh!!! I will never buy anything ground again. it's just too easy to grind

my own and know exactly what's in there :-0

 
Yeah, I'm getting

very particular with my food and trying to buy as much locally as possible. I'm getting my produce from a local organic farm as a subscriber, also buying their eggs and chickens. Found a beef and lamb farmer and am going in with friends to buy a yearling steer--pasture raised with no antibiotics and growth hormones, and it's $2.19/lb.!!! That's all the t-bones, porterhouse, filets, as well as the heart and tongue etc. which will feed my boys quite nicely.

And those tubes of ground mystery meat in the freezer/frig case? Ohmygawd! Had a "turkey" that was all skin, gristle, and who knows what all.

 
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