Hamburger: Grind Thine Own Beef!

About two years ago, I started sourcing large beef roasts and grinding my own hamburger meat. Here's a few of the ideas that drove me to action:

1. From where upon the cow did this ground meat come? Mostly, no one can tell you any longer. Back in the day, you could buy ground round, ground chuck or ground sirloin. Now, the stores sell ground meat only in lean to fat ratios (95/5, 90/10, 80/20.) The meat therein? Scraps mostly from all parts of the beast mixed with fat also sourced from parts unknown. I don't know about you, but about the only things I am comfortable coming from parts unknown are professional wrestlers.

1A. Know from where thy beef is cut. It's important. Ground chuck is great for burgers while ground round and sirloin are leaner and perform better in chili, tacos, sloppy joes and the like where the excess fat that renders during cooking is not something most people like to indulge in, except Jack Sprat's wife I suppose. Besides, rendered fat poured into the trash is a waste of money.

2. How many cows doth comprise this one pound of 90/10 I purchased? God alone may know, or not, but I can guarantee you this, if you buy a roast cut from one cow and grind it yourself, you're eating from one source animal. My preference is for one over many. What's the big deal you say? See Idea 3.

3. E coli. When you're using scraps as your source meat, think about what your Mom used to tell you about money, "Get that out of your mouth, you don't know where it's been!" Scraps are small, scraps are cut from areas of the beast more prone to contamination, scraps fall on the floor, despite diligent efforts at cleanliness the floor in a slaughterhouse is not where I'd like to see my food, as per Idea 2 it takes a lot of scraps from a lot of cows to makeup that pound of ground beef all of which increases the opportunity for the meat and then you to be exposed to e coli. Meanwhile that roast which you will grind yourself, stays well above the fray and far from the floor. Think about it, how many outbreaks of e coli do you hear about that involve contaminated Sunday roast beef vs. instances from fast food hamburger patties or bulk processed ground meat?

4. The stores around here never, I repeat never sell one pound of ground meat in a package. It's always a pound and quarter, a pound and half. At $5.00/lb, you're spending up to an additional $2.50 for that package of meat. Sure you'll use it, but most recipes call for full pound increments of ground meat which means you'll either freeze the leftovers or throw off your recipe ratios to accommodate the additional meat. At the end of the day, why spend the additional money when you can pack exact one pound packages of meat yourself?

5. Think simple economics. Around here you'll pay $5.00/lb for ground meat. The last top round roast I purchased and processed was $2.79/lb. There was approximately a half pound of waste (see Idea 7) that I did not grind. We netted 11 packages of ground meat, so the half pound of loss marginally increased the cost per pound to around $2.89/lb. The overall savings on this grind was $23.21 Not bad for an hour of effort.

6. It's damned manly. As I break down and process the roasts I am fond of chanting heartily, "Men...Men...Men...Men...Men." Beer should be drunk. Hell, why not gather the clan and have a grinding bee? Bring a roast and a bottle...

7. You grind it. You decide what's in it. Ultimately with store bought ground meat you can never be sure what's in there. Connective tissue, large blood vessels, bone slivers, gristle and other tough bits which might pass through the grinder, but end up as little gross inedible nuggets that you have to discreetly hide in a napkin. If you grind it, you can take the time and make the extra effort to cut out the problematic bits and ensure a palate pleasing, unadulterated end product.

7A. You grind it. You decide how fine to grind it. The fine grinding die will produce the standard supermarket grind, but I also leave some meat coarse ground for chili and other dishes where it's desirable to have larger, more toothsome pieces.

8. Taste the difference. Grinding your own hamburger will not turn that roast into a high end, grass fed, free range piece of beef, but there is a discernible difference between the ground meat I process and store bought mystery meat. It's just better man.

So there you have it, the reasons why I grind mine own.

Next time...Hamburger: Grind Thine Own Beef! Part 2: The Process.

Just how do you do it? Well, I'll tell you.