hamburger meats?

Ground hamburger: Ground from less tender and/or less popular cuts of beef. Generally the butcher reserves trimmings from other meat cuts (excluding innards) to grind into hamburger and ground beef. This means in theory there could be pieces of sirloin, chuck, ribs, or even filet mignon in that package of hamburger. According to USDA standards, hamburger may have fat added, but cannot contain more than 30% fat by weight.

Ground beef: Basically the same as ground hamburger but it cannot have added fat. It cannot contain more than 30% fat by weight.

Specialty ground beef: If the label says it's ground sirloin or ground chuck, then those are the only parts included in the grind. These grinds are typically more expensive and leaner than the all-inclusive ground beef or hamburger. However, buyer beware. Ground sirloin or ground round can conceivably be no leaner than inexpensive ground beef, yet still be properly labeled as long as it doesn't claim to be lean. Don't depend on the cut to define leanness. The following percentages are used as a guideline for specific cuts:

• Ground chuck : 80 to 85 percent lean / 15 to 20 percent fat
• Ground round : 85 to 90 percent lean / 10 to 15 percent fat
• Ground sirloin : 90 to 92 percent lean / 8 to 10 percent fat

To me the grinder is worth is for many reasons.......one is you control what goes into it and can play with different combinations.

I like a 50/50 mix of brisket and chuck.

Ground chuck if you want a really really good burger. Around 15% fat more or less. Otherwise, ground sirloin and round is good, its a bit leaner, but still makes a good burger.

If you have to choose one cut for hamburger, it's chuck. 80/20 lean to fat ratio on avearge which is excellent. Good flavor and cheap

Sirloin is a fine addition to chuck in a blend. It is much leaner like 90/10. May add some flavor and will help bring down the fat % in the blend

Hanger steak is excellent for both flavor and texture but hard to find and not cheap.

Brisket is also a good addition to chuck for flavor. It also has a moderte fat ratio and good price point.

This is ground chuck.I grind it in 10 pound batches and freeze in 1 pound freezer bags.I dont buy hamburger/any ground beef.

I use the grinder attchment on kitchen aide mixer....

I grind chuck roast for hamburgers,meatloaf etc....Always a sale somewhere and as mentioned it freezez well ground.....The chuck is sorta all purpose,but as fatback mentioned you can use other cuts.....

No problem-you are not being a pain

I would recommend it like doing your own sausage as well.You can really control quality etc... IMHO....

Ground meat comes from trimmings off primal and subprimals that are cut into their respective final cuts. If it is not trimming, then it is a cut that can be sold as such. Fattier and leaner trimmings can be mixed together to get the proper fat/lean ratios.
I took a tour of the Moyer Packing Plant in Pa; they start with the live animal being led up the 'stairway to heaven', knocked in the skull, throat slit, yanked up with chain hoist by it's hind legs, gutted and skinned, then maneuvered (this is all on a motorized rail system) through a nitrogen cooler to get the body heat out in 20 min, then split, quartered, cut into primals, then subprimals, trimmed (burger stuff!), subprimals COV'd and boxed, onto a waiting truck and shipped out. All the remaining parts are on conveyor lines that get culled, trimmed, sorted and put in all respective parts and pieces areas for further processing. No part of the animal is wasted, they even pick out the delicate nose and ear hairs from the head for fine brushes.
Back to burger - they collect all the trimmings in pallet-sized lugs and take them into the grinding room - two grinders, each the size of a Ford King Cab, one dumping into the other for a two-grind mix then into a stuffing machine about the size of a small trailer house, spitting out 1, 3, 5, 10 and 20 lb tubes of ground meat. Prior to grinding they take core samples from each 'lug' and measure the fat to lean ratio and add more lean as needed to achieve the proper ratios, usually local bull beef they've slaughtered separately.
The 1, 3, and 5 lb. chubs are what you see in the meat counter, the 10 and 20's are box-packed for meatrooms to grind into packages.
Shelf life is 45 days from the plant. There are no additives or preservatives, but the one thing that is missing is... bacteria. This is all done under better-than-hospital-operating-room conditions... 99.9% bacteria-free. Regular store-ground meats have a 24 hr. shelf life, this has 45 days! It is the freshest of ground meats you can get outside of your own grinder. Try a chub next time - let it air for a few minutes first, it will bloom bright red and taste delicious!
The best flavor comes from the worst cuts - neck, shank, etc. The harder the muscle is worked the tougher it is and the more pronounced flavor it has - that's why cutters and canners are boned out and used as lean for burger - they're old, tough, lean, overworked cattle that are raised specifically for either grinding or stewing. Burger isn't cut-specific; moreso it is trim-general, mixed and ground into a uniform fat to lean ratio. Grinding destroys the 'tough or tender' factor; that's the purpose of it; these are parts'n'pieces that can't be cooked separate into a palatable dish, but ground - yum!

Pops, I noticed that Sam's is now carrying more chubs in their fresh meat dept. What you are saying then is they are the best to buy for safety and consistency?

Oh, and also would you belieave they do not use any trimmings in their meat dept? They are disposed of and not ground up. I'll have to find out where there ground chuck comes from then, I thought they ground their own.

Pops, I've been grinding my own meat so long I can't remember much about buying it preground. Interesting information on the chubs. I have never used them but remember when there have been E. coli recalls it involved chubs.

Good topic actually..... I just recently bought a (stuffer) and a grinder, primarily for making sausage , but have ground burger in it also. I recently went to a store called cash & carry & they had a cryovaced package of what was called special ends, or something like that...... It was $1.75 per pound on sale & I bought a bag, it was about 10 pounds. It was ALL FLANK STEAK!.. which is my all time favorite for jerky..... Being semi health concious, I did grind up a small cut of the flank in an attempt to make ULTRA LEAN burger. Well I got what I wished for...... Burger that would not stay together in patty form. But the flank was great. A grinder is a very versatile cooking tool, which could possibly help in lowering your food budget (as in grinding your own burger from meats on sale), making sausage (also some that do not require stuffing), or some grinders do also double as a stuffer. Check out www.northerntool.com for some pretty reasonable priced grinders & such.

Good Luck!

Yes, contrary to popular belief, (most people assume that they are poor quality with fillers and preservatives, etc.) those prepackaged chubs are actually very good grouind meat. That is all we use all the time for burgers, meatloaf, spaghetti, etc., and what I buy for making summer sausages. I'm suspect of store-ground meat because of the bacteria that can be introduced by improperly cleaned equipment, bad handling, regrinds and case-pulled out of date meats added that degenerates the quality of the product.

Lord knows over the years I've had to do all those things or lose my job. Pull 4 day old dark steaks with fuzzies on them ("Oh just rinse it off, it'll be fine, get it into the grinds now!" as more than one meat manager would instruct). The stories I could tell. One manager would put old half-rotten pork and lamb culls (cuts put out in the meat case, didn't sell, then culled, or pulled, back into the meatroom and boned out and left in a lug for several days) in the Saturday morning grinds rather than throw it out. You wait until Saturday because inspectors aren't around that can random-sample your ground meats for 'foreign' products.
Or one cutter I worked with who had a bad sinus condition, snot dripping into the ground meats as he stood over the grinder shoving it through. (Sorry to gross you out but this really happened all the time for years with him, everyone else just thought it was funny).
TV stations will do exposes and send ground meats to a lab for analysis from all the local chain stores and verify such practices. A station just did that a few years ago here in the metroplex, and found chicken, pork, lamb and 'unidentifiable' meat added into its ground meats from several chains.

I also shop at cash and carry. Just bought a 19# chuck roast and pork sirloin for my burger. I mix 6# of chuck and 4# of pork sirloin and this makes a great burger. I also use the same ratio when making venison burger using pork sirloin.

Cash and carry is also a great place to get spares. I just got 3 packages (9 spares) for $1.15 a lb...

That verifies my nightmares Pops.I will try the chubs when grinding would be impractical for large gatherings....