A meat grinder is an essential kitchen appliance. We use it too often to prepare delicious food items. But many of us do not know how a meat grinder works. In this article, we will discuss the working principle of a mat grind. At first, we will discuss the important components of a meat grinder. Finally, we will answer the question- ‘how does a meat grinder work?’
Important components of a meat grinder
- Meat tray– This is the topmost part of a meat grinder. A meat grinder is generally made of aluminum alloy. Input feed is usually put on this hopper.
- Feeding tube– Right below the meat tray, there is a ‘T’ shaped feeding tube. The upper portion of the tube is attached with the meat tray and the lower part has smalls parts that are attached to it.
- Screw ring– This is the most outer small part of the feeding tube
- Cutting blade– At the end of the extruder, there is a cutting blade attached to it that cuts the meat into minute pieces.
- Extruder– An extruder is attached to the motor and placed into the feed tube. It pushes the meat to the outer direction.
- Grinder plate– Grinding plates have some small hole that allows the coarse meat to get out of the grinder after cutting is done by the blade. The hole can be of different sizes that give the output of varying sizes.
- Motor– This is the most important part of a meat grinder which determines the sturdiness of a grinder. A residential grinder has a motor with 300 to 500 W.
- Meat pusher– This is generally a plastic made stick-like accessory that is used to push the meat inside the feeding tube.
- Sausage stuffer– This is an additional accessory that needs to be attached to the screw ring. If a user wishes to prepare sausage, then she attaches a sausage stuffer with her meat grinder.
Read our article if you need to know about some best budget meat grinders.
Working principle- How a meat grinder work
- First, a user needs to take a big chunk of meat, clean it and remove the additional fats. Then the meat needs to keep inside the freezer to cool it down.
- Small parts of the meat grinder, such as grinding plate, blade, extruder are also needed to cool down before the operation. During the operation, heat is generated. Therefore, it is better if a user cools down the accessories
- During the operation, a user needs to assemble the meat grinder. Then the meat is cut into pieces with a knife. The size depends on the size of the feeding tube. If the meat grinder is #5, then the diameter of the feeding tube is the least. Therefore, a user needs to cut the meat into small pieces.
- A user then put the pieces of meat on the hopper and manually put the pieces of meat into the feeding tube.
- The meat passes through the feeding tube and it reaches the extruder which pushes the meat to the outside.
- The outer portion of the tube has a grinding plate and blade. The blade cut down the meat but the size of the cut depends on the size of the hole of the grinding plate.
- Usually, a user has plates with different sizes. Therefore, she chooses the plate according to the necessary output size she requires.
- Finally, if she intended to prepare sausage, burger or kibbeh, she attaches an attachment as per her requirement.
Read our article to know about meat grinder vs food processor.
For a hand-crank meat grinder, the motor is replaced by a human hand. All other components of a manual meat grinder is same as an electric meat grinder. Below is a detailed demonstration how a hand-crank meat grinder works-
Final words
I hope now you know how a meat grinder works. You can not learn swimming unless you jump into the water. Therefore, if you have a meat grinder, you can easily understand the words that I have mentioned. If you think this article useful, do not forget to share it with your friends and family. You can tell us if you have any experience with any kitchen appliances through the comment section. Have a good day!