Just an information type post. This is based on my findings when making sausages and even lard.

3/16″ holes is the Medium plate, and it may be the smallest size holes for the plates you received with your grinder. Perfect for Polish, Italian, Breakfast Sausages, and Hamburger.

1/4″ holes is the Medium Coarse plate, perfect for Bratwurst.

Wagon Wheel is the Coarse plate, normally with triangular shaped holes, I find this perfect when grinding pork fat to render lard.

This may seem like a no brainer to some, but I am assuming there is folks that do not know how to do this.

Where I live, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, I can get minced pork at Tesco in town, there is no beef offered, and certainly no ground or minced chicken. Well one day I was going to make me a pot of Chili using minced pork (minced is just a more course grind of ground meat). But alas, when I got to Tesco, they were sold out of minced pork, so I just picked up some pork butt and figured I would make a slow cooker something. I got home and told my wife the mince pork was sold out, so I got several large pieces of pork butt. My wife said no problem, about 10 minutes later, she handed me a large bowl of minced pork and asked is that enough.

I asked her to show me how she did this as I always used a hand grinder when I was growing up. Large chopping block (think the large wood, thick, discs you see at the markets) and a cleaver. About 3 minutes of effort and you have minced anything, keep chopping and you have ground. It is really that easy!

I have a couple of chicken recipes lined up I am going to try using ground/minced chicken, as well as next time I order beef, I am going to mince some to make some good beef burgers.

Update 25 Nov 2016, I have purchased an electric meat grinder, Thai family is amazed at the speed. There is 3 plates for fine, medium, and course ground. It can grind 1 kilo per minute with the fine plate, bit faster with the course plate. I no longer buy minced pork, I grind everything myself and can control the fat content.

I ordered an electric grinder through Lazada and I am more than happy with it. Where I live, ground beef is not available (I can get large chunks of beef, just not ground), I can get pork but it just minced meaning a larger grind, and ground chicken, just unheard of. I used a manual grinder when I was growing up, used it to grind a lot of deer, make hash, and even ground up some fish. Since I do not have a counter that I can clamp a manual grinder to or even a table that I can do that with, I went with a counter top electric model, and I am more than impressed. When my wife seen it in action, she was impressed as she is used to mincing pork with a cleaver. The grinder I have now is rated at 1 kilo per minute to grind with the smallest die.

This will be a very welcome addition to the kitchen, now we can buy pork loin or shoulder and grind ourselves, we can order beef and grind ourselves, and the same with chicken.

There is a few things to keep in mind however when it comes to using a meat grinder at home.

1. Most important step you can do is the sterilize the grinder parts before each use. Even if you have washed all the parts the day before, sterilize the parts before you put it together and use again. Since the grinding process creates heat, not a lot, but there is heat, that becomes a breeding ground for bacteria. With a properly sterilized setup, you minimize any bacteria from your grinder, nothing we can do about airborne bacteria. Best way, and I know a lot of you will cringe at this is to use 3-4 liters of water (drinking water, not tap water) and 1/4 cup of chlorine bleach. (Yes, your kitchen may smell like a swimming pool for a few minutes, this is perfectly safe to do.) Add the parts of the grinder that you can remove and add to the water/bleach for at least one minute, then you can remove the parts, rinse with drinking water, rinse completely, dry the parts, then you can assemble the grinder and you are ready to use.

2. Never bring home a sack of meat from the store or market and expect to grind it right then, the meat needs to be prepped and chilled, and the grinder parts sterilized.

3. You need to cut the meat into strips or chunks in order to feed into the hopper, and all silver tendon removed from beef or pork. Once you have the meat ready, place back in the fridge to keep it cold until you have sterilized and assembled the grinder.

4. The grinding process does create heat, so unless you are going to take fresh ground beef as soon as it is ground and cook something, place it back into the fridge to cool it until you are ready to use. I use large zip lock freezer bags and place 500 grams of ground meat in a bag and freeze it for later use.

Now we only buy pork, beef, and chicken from the local market, no need to go into town as we can not only grind the pork, but we can now grind beef and chicken as well. Remember, the more times a product has to be handled (such as grinding the meat for say Tesco) the more it adds to the cost. Buy the meat in large chunks for pork and beef, and you just saved money.