Grinding Meat
I've never really had a problem buying ground meat or pork, but in books and videos I kept coming across the idea that anyone serious about cooking should grind their own meat. They made it sound and look easy so I gave it a try.
I failed over and over, throwing away batches of meat that had been turned into paste. I stuck with it and eventually learned some principles (chill the meat!) and I'm very happy with the result.
But you know what, if you're not up for buying new equipment, learning how to use it, taking extra time to chill meat and sometimes even grinder parts, grinding twice, then having to clean the whole mechanism, I say just go with store bought.
If you someday get the urge, the information below will be a lifesaver, and you'll experience a quality of ground meat you'll never find in a store.
Storing ground meat is part of the Invisible Keto System. I recommend storing a course ground selection of each meat you might use, then for a specific recipe combining the meats as desired into a fine grind.
The equipment
To grind your own meat you need a grinder, naturally enough.
KitchenAid grinder attachment
If you have a KitchenAid, they have a high quality grinder extension and it's a good starting point.
It is pretty twiddly and you definitely need to chill the external grinder parts in the freezer along with the meat.
If you only plan to do some occasional grinding and you have a KitchenAid, give it a try.
If you don't have a KitchenAid and don't plan to get one, I suggest moving on to the grinders discussed next, as you'll spend less on a high quality dedicated grinder than you will buying both KitchenAid and the grinder attachment.
Dedicated Grinders
There's a big world of various grinders that go up to industrial scale, and are used by hunters to grind up deer, or people who store a cow in their freezer, not to mention restaurants.
These grinding jobs require something more than an attachment. They need to be dedicated and powerful. And surprisingly this tends to make them easier to use, as you don't usually need to chill the grinder components, and the components are larger and easier to put together, which also means fewer failure points.
You can search the usual places to see what grinders are currently in your price range. I settled on an LEM BigBite #8, which I'm quite happy with.
The number one rule of Grinder Club is...
Chill your meat! I didn't take this seriously enough for a while and totally sabotaged myself.
The meat should be a bit below 40°F (or whatever your model advises) which takes about half an hour in the freezer. If the meat is warmer than this, rather than getting chopped up and spit out in nice strands, it just turns into paste that gums up the equipment and makes for an annoying cleanup job.
The number two rule is...
Grind it twice, once using a coarse plate, and a second time using a medium or small-holed plate. Extra credit if you chill the first batch for 15 minutes or so before doing the second grind.
(Original notes said to only grind once for burgers???)
This double grind gives you a very nice moist ground beef or pork that integrates the fat and protein in a manner you'll just never see in a store.
And the number three rule is...
Don't touch your meat! (Okay make of that what you will.)
You want to touch and work the ground meat as little as possible, as every contact degrades the quality.
Ground meat is not pizza dough: it doesn't work to keep kneading it. Get the shape you want and stop.