Hobart meat grinder

Mark

Well-known Member
Any of you have experience using a smaller Hobart bench top meat grinder? I recently bought a 1/4 hp. model 4612, which appears to be from the 1950"s. It has a #12 grinder head and the only info I could find rates it at 5 pounds a minute....is that with the largest size plate? That doesn"t sound like a lot when reading the specs of some bigger machines....I just wonder if will bog down easily. I bought it to process an occasional deer or maybe a hog. If this thing will render a 5 pound roast into hamburger in one minute that sounds pretty good to me.
 
Mark,
I use a Hobart PD-35 with grinder attachment rated at 1/2 HP. I try and run 6 deer through it every year. Your going to need to cube that deer meat down but your grinder should do just fine. Good thing about Hobart is their parts support and interchangability of the grinder parts.

r/

Pete in NC
 
Do yourself a favor and buy some new plates and knives and keep them matched up and your grinder will amaze you with what it can do, remember 5 lbs a minute is 300 lbs an hour.
The stainless knives with the curved design work very good and are worth the extra few dollars.
You can get them at most butcher supply dealers, e-bay, online sporting good stores etc.
They don't have to be hobart parts, as long as they are for a number 12 grinder they should work for you.
The only time I use the economy knives is when grinding goose as steel shot can snap a knife in two real fast.
Double grind for burger works well 3/8 first pass and 3/16 second time through.
 
Thank you both for your replies.

I have already bought 2 new SS star type knives. The three plates that came with the grinder looked fine.....even so, I polished them using my saw table as a flat surface with 600 grit emory paper. If the plates fail to deliver the goods, I'll buy new ones.

I don't expect there to be more than a couple deer a year ran through it for our personal use. My deer hunting days are pretty much behind me but my youngest son has the fever and old dad will have to help him on the first few.

As for cubing the deer 'steaks'........a cubing attachment for this old grinder would be nice but probably cost more than I paid for the machine ($150). I always liked to just save the back straps and tenderloins and grind the rest.

I've never made any sausage but a sausage tube did come with the grinder.
 
You don't need to worry about that grinder. We have 2 of those style and they work outstanding. Best grinder of that size ever made. Second grind is a little slow but if your grinder is in good shape it will never run out of power.
 
"The three plates that came with the grinder looked fine.....even so, I polished them using my saw table as a flat surface with 600 grit emory paper. If the plates fail to deliver the goods, I'll buy new ones."

Mark
I have tried cleaning up old plates before much like you did.
I wet sanded them down to a mirror finish and was dissapointed with the results, unless you were to clean them up on a lathe or mill you won't be happy.
Once you run a new knife on a plate it wears a pattern into it and it is best kept with that plate.
After buying new plates and knives and seeing the difference there is no comparison and grinding is effortless.
 
Determined,

I'm not one to fly in the face of good advice.....so what size of new plates do you recommend for grinding deer burger/pork sausage? I think in your other post you mentioned using 3/8" and 3/16". Let me know and I will order new ones to pair with the 2 new knives I bought.

I have a milling machine and a lathe....but I think a surface grinder would be required to produce a mirror finish on the old plates.
 
I think he meant "cut the meat into cubes (before you feed it into the grinder)". In other words you can't just shove a whole roast in there and expect anything useful to happen.
 
(quoted from post at 10:23:17 09/23/14) Determined,

I'm not one to fly in the face of good advice.....so what size of new plates do you recommend for grinding deer burger/pork sausage? I think in your other post you mentioned using 3/8" and 3/16". Let me know and I will order new ones to pair with the 2 new knives I bought.

I have a milling machine and a lathe....but I think a surface grinder would be required to produce a mirror finish on the old plates.


Hi Mark
The 3/8 and 3/16 are the ones we use most often for burger, breakfast sausage, pressed jerky etc.
The kind of sausage you are going to make will help you determine which others to buy.
For summer sausage I grind frozen fat through a 1/8 plate to give it that nice speckled appearance.
For garlic/ham sausage I prefer a very coarse product and use what is called a kidney plate, it has two holes with a divider down the center and produces pieces the size of your thumb.
It also works reasonable if you are going to try to stuff sausage with your grinder.
Our machine is an old #22 with a 3/4 hp motor and it will suck in pieces the size of the feed hole and whatever length without even grunting so cubing first should not be necessary if you keep your meat cold.
 
Determined,

Once again, thanks for your helpful comments.

I have never stuffed sausages, don't have a clue where to start...reckon I need to watch some youtube videos. I understand the kidney plate is used for stuffing them.

As for the other comments on 'cubing' the meat, I truly didn't think cutting the meat into little chunks would be necessary to feed the grinder. I never put much thought about the meat temperature...as it would be coming out of refrigeration or from a cold hanging carcass prior to grinding.

Got those new plates coming.
 
I like the meat to be cold when grinding. We cut the meat into inch and a half to two and a half inch squares. Measure the venison and the pork, 50/50 for dry 40/60 for fresh. Measure out seasoning and pour on top of the meat. Mix well and grind through 3/8" plate. Grind again through 1/8" plate and put in stuffer.
 

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