How To Set Up Kitchenaid Meat Grinder

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KitchenAid stand up mixers are a status symbol for bakers in kitchens beyond America.
Attachments made for the mixer let you employ your KitchenAid for more than but doughs or batters.
I love KitchenAid's meat grinder attachment, which lets me use my mixer to brand footing meats and sausages.

Equally someone who mainly focused on cooking savory meals and avoided making sweets, I didn't know much almost the wonders of the KitchenAid stand mixer until I married one. Well, I married my wife, and she had the Professional 5 mixer.

Over the years, I've learned how versatile this machine is, specially when used with the optional attachments. These add-ons brand use of the mixer'southward torque and power to perform a whole repertoire of tasks. There's an zipper for spiralizing vegetables, sheeting homemade pasta, and fifty-fifty one for chopping vegetables like a food processor.

My favorite attachment is the meat grinder, which lets me make my own sausages and ground meats. Hither are my experiences with information technology.

Design and specs

The KSMMGA, the model number for this product, is not the outset meat grinder attachment put out by KitchenAid. The company has a popular "Nutrient Grinder Attachment" (model FGA), which currently sells for almost $60 from KitchenAid. The big differences are that the KSMMGA is fabricated entirely of metal, information technology comes with plates and stuffer tubes, and the nutrient tray is larger.

The grinder comes in a user-friendly hard Styrofoam instance where you lot tin can fit all of the implements that it come with:

Fine (iii mm), medium (4.5 mm), and fibroid (8 mm) grinding plates
A sausage stuffer plate
Small (9.5 mm) and large (19 mm) sausage stuffer tubes
Cleaning brush
Food pusher

The package includes the main housing, a grind screw, a blade, and a removable food tray.

Out of the box, the grinder feels heavy duty and durable. It weighs almost 2 and a half pounds. After doing a petty research, I plant it'due south best to put it in the freezer a few hours before you lot plan to use it for germ-free purposes. This decreases the chance of leaner growth from an increase in meat temperature. Consequently, instead of storing my grinder in the nice Styrofoam instance, I keep information technology in my freezer.

Using the KitchenAid meat grinder

I mainly used the KitchenAid Meat Grinder Zipper to grind large slabs of meat and to create my own concoctions. For example, one of the first dishes I made was a half beef, half bacon burger. I used black Angus meridian sirloin and pork jowl bacon.

Using the attachment is unproblematic. You choose the grinding plate size y'all want (I mainly used the coarse plate, which is recommended for burgers and chili meat), and and so you insert the grinding screw into the main housing and cap it with the blade and grinding plate. Side by side, secure them with the neckband, and plough the mixer to four and start feeding your meat through the hole in the food tray. You're supposed to cutting the meat into one-inch cubes or smaller, but I didn't have whatever problem feeding in long one-inch strips.

As a hamburger lover, I was impressed with the season of the burgers produced by grinding my own beef. Compared to buying ground beefiness at the store, my cost-effective, abode-ground patties were much more flavorful.

My wife liked that we were able to make fairly lean beer brats, too. We ground up a London broil roast and pork tenderloin, mixed the meat with plenty of seasonings and a can of beer, and let it mellow overnight. The side by side day, we used the sausage plate and stuffer to make our own "salubrious" bratwurst.

Overall, the grinder elements are like shooting fish in a barrel to make clean if yous rinse visible debris off immediately subsequently you are done grinding. Unfortunately, there were a couple times when I was in a bustle and didn't take time to rinse the housing, grinding screw, et al., and it was much harder to get the little $.25 of ground meat off. The cleaning castor was useful in these instances. The plastic parts — the food pusher and sausage making accessories — are dishwasher prophylactic.

Cons to consider

My biggest issue with the KitchenAid Metallic Meat Grinder Attachment is that in that location's usually a i-ounce clamper of meat left over at the end betwixt the blade and the grinding plate. This goes to waste material unless yous're on the ball plenty to freeze the chunks after each grinding job and maybe brand a stew onetime down the route. This is only a modest gripe.

Making sausage wasn't every bit simple equally I wanted it to be, but I tin can't really blame the attachment. This was my first fourth dimension making sausage, and the casings kept breaking. Regardless, the actual meat was delicious, and I will likely give sausage-making some other shake in the well-nigh futurity.

I too suppose a wider feeding mouth would have been nice when stuffing in sausage. With a wider mouth, I as well wouldn't accept to cut the pieces of meat as small and could have allowed the KitchenAid to do more of the work.

The lesser line

If you lot ain a KitchenAid stand mixer and like to eat basis meat and sausages, this zipper is a must. Information technology'south intuitive to use, gives you the freedom to brand unique concoctions, and it cleans up easily. And at $100, the KitchenAid KSMMGA Metal Food Grinder Attachment is much less expensive than a dedicated meat grinder and takes up less space.

James Brains

Habitation & Kitchen Reporter, Insider Reviews

James is a Home & Kitchen Reporter for Insider Reviews, where he specializes in sleep, HVAC, and kitchen appliances. He has tested more than xxx mattresses from startups similar Casper and legacy brands like Tempur-Pedic, using his groundwork in experimental psychology to develop objective tests and evaluate comfort, back up, motion transfer, and more. He authors our guide to the best mattresses. In addition to beingness Insider Reviews' mattress skilful, James has extensively covered robot vacuums, air conditioners, air purifiers, and more than within the HVAC space. He'due south tested more than than twenty robot vacs from brands like iRobot and Roborock over the years and is no stranger to keeping his firm at a dank 60 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks on end all in the proper name of testing air conditioners. He'south a multifaceted author who has covered everything from wellness and fitness to consumer engineering science. His mission is to help people get the most value for their money past guiding them in making informed buying decisions. James is currently based in Lansing, Michigan, where he lives in "The Barn Mansion," a three-story Dutch colonial home, with his wife, two sons, 2 cats, and a rambunctious rat terrier. When James isn't testing products and writing for Insider, he'due south helping to run a pop local Facebook group, Lansing Foodies. See below for some of his work: The all-time mattress for every blazon of sleeper in 2022, according to our rigorous testing The 6 best robot vacuums we tested in 2022 The vi all-time air conditioners we tested in 2022 The best Instant Pots and electric pressure level cookers nosotros tested in 2022 10 grilling essentials that chefs and pitmasters swear by for making the best BBQ The five best mattress toppers we tested in 2022 Contact info: jbrains@insider.com Learn more nigh how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here. Acquire more most how we exam kitchen products.