hog warden
Smoking Fanatic
- Feb 10, 2009
- 410
- 24
Excellent job!
I've lost track of how many pounds of butt's I've ground up but ALL of it has been with hand grinders. Even with the smallest of them (a #5), I can do a full butt in under 10 minutes and most of that time is spent trying to get the meat chunks to feed into the screws. One of the local stores sells fresh butts (not packed in liquid) sliced as pork steaks for 99 cents a pound. I cut those up and get really small cubes that feed better, and I mix those with spices and grind only once. Before I'd worry about an electric grinder/stuffer, I'd look to something like a 5# stuffer from Northern Tool. Keep at this and you will eventually want the manual stuffer anyway, even with the electric grinder.
Good advice from everyone, especially the part about chilling meat to the point of being partially frozen before grinding, watching temps and the cure.
And as for that cure, check your brat mix to see if it has sodium nitrite (cure) in it. If not, don't smoke it at those temps without adding some. Those temps are a perfect growth medium for botulism spores to go active. Perfectly safe with nitrite in it, potentially lethal without it.
But fresh brats (no long term smoking/cooking) are fine without it.
I've lost track of how many pounds of butt's I've ground up but ALL of it has been with hand grinders. Even with the smallest of them (a #5), I can do a full butt in under 10 minutes and most of that time is spent trying to get the meat chunks to feed into the screws. One of the local stores sells fresh butts (not packed in liquid) sliced as pork steaks for 99 cents a pound. I cut those up and get really small cubes that feed better, and I mix those with spices and grind only once. Before I'd worry about an electric grinder/stuffer, I'd look to something like a 5# stuffer from Northern Tool. Keep at this and you will eventually want the manual stuffer anyway, even with the electric grinder.
Good advice from everyone, especially the part about chilling meat to the point of being partially frozen before grinding, watching temps and the cure.
And as for that cure, check your brat mix to see if it has sodium nitrite (cure) in it. If not, don't smoke it at those temps without adding some. Those temps are a perfect growth medium for botulism spores to go active. Perfectly safe with nitrite in it, potentially lethal without it.
But fresh brats (no long term smoking/cooking) are fine without it.
