Perfect Ground Beef - Part I - Grinding Your Own Beef

What we're going to do:
Grind beef

Why it's important:
Because for equivalent cuts and grade of beef, beef that you grind yourself tastes better than store-bought ground beef, period.

Ground beef is used when making burgers, chili, sloppy Joe's, taco's, empanadas and meat loaf to name a few. In this part - Part I - I will show the simple process for grinding beef at home. In Part II I will show a secret to frying ground beef that few people know about. 

Let me say this upfront. This is not about saving money. On a good day grinding your own beef and buying hamburger will cost about the same. This is about creating a fresh, ground meat whose quality is better than 99% of anything you can find in a store.

So one might ask, "If I'm going to grind my own beef, what of beef should I buy?"

I am not a perfect human being. The fact is that I grind about 60% of my ground beef (40% of the time I am either lazy or running late).  I know of no "one perfect" cut of meat to grind. I'm not saying that what follows is the best choice for ground beef. What I am saying is that it's my choice.

My favorite blend to grind is a 50-50 mix of chuck and bottom round. My preference is on the lean side of the lean-fat spectrum. Chuck provides the fat, juiciness and flavor. Mixing that with the leaner bottom round contrasts that with a rich, beef taste.

That's my preference. Keep it simple. First time out start by buying only one cut of meat. Popular choices are chuck, sirloin and short rib. Chef Jacques Pepin uses brisket. The important thing is to not make it so complicated or expensive that you resort to buying the packaged stuff. Depending on your likes and pricing I'd say start with chuck or sirloin and see where that takes you.

There are, of course, the premium cuts of meat generally used for steaks and roasts. My favorite cut of beef is the rib eye. But running a boneless rib eye through the meat grinder is crazy! Or is it?

I recently (Jan 2016) picked up a boneless rib eye steak at Trader Joe's for $9.99 a pound. I would bet that in your area you can find a rib eye at that price, maybe better, especially on sale. But isn't turning a $10/pound steak into hamburger overkill? Consider this - If you make 8 ounce burgers that's 2 burgers for $5.00 each. Smaller but still respectably-large 5-ounce burgers would be $3.35 each. That isn't much above fast food pricing, yet this is a premium cut of meat. So while it might not be your everyday grind it might be a nice occasional indulgence.

Anyway, back to the grind. The process for grinding meat is pretty straightforward. If you don't already own one, you'll need to determine what kind of meat grinder is best for you. This article will help you decide. I have a Kitchenaid mixer so I use the Kitchenaid attachment. It comes with two metal plates. I use the larger plate for grinding meat. The smaller one tends to plug.

Here I start with four pounds of beef. On the left is the chuck and on the right is the bottom round. Note that the chuck seems to have a higher fat content. It does.

I cut the beef into strips so that it feeds into the meat grinder attachment. I will cube and reserve one pound for beef stew.

Not much to say about this...the beef strips go in the top and the ground beef comes out of the front. Grinding three pounds of meat took me about two minutes. More time was spent trimming and slicing the meat.  Be sure to observe all the safety instructions for your grinder.

When you're done this is what three pounds of ground beef will look like. At this point it smells so fresh. 

Up until last year my sister lived in Connecticut. She took me to a restaurant in Glastonbury, Plan B Burger. Their claim to fame is that they grind their beef fresh - sometimes minutes before cooking it. If at all possible please plan to cook a burger with your fresh ground meat before you store or freeze it.

In Part II of this article I will demonstrate my method for browning ground beef. It is a technique that removes the fat yet keeps the tasty broth.