Reddit reviews Weston #10 Manual Tinned Meat Grinder and Sausage Stuffer (36-1001-W), 4.5mm & 10mm plates, + 3 sausage funnels,Silver

The plastic gear and screw and suction base would be my concern.

I'd recommend something with a metal screw, a couple of plates (coarse and fine), and a clamp for a sturdy base. Something like this:http://www.amazon.com/Weston-Heavy-Manual-Tinned-Grinder/dp/B000BQSW44/ref=pd_sim_sbs_k_4?ie=UTF8 , or this http://www.amazon.com/CucinaPro-265-08-Healthy-Meat-Grinder/dp/B0000DE4LW/ref=pd_sbs_k_4?ie=UTF8.

There are several similar items available at various prices.

Edit; link #2

Sure, all the time. You don't need an electric grinder at all, just an old fashioned hand-crank one will work fine. We do 15-20# at a time and still use a manual grinder after 20+ years...we'll usually run the meat through twice with different plates to get the grind we want. They are often found at thrifts but are also available new. A stuffer of some kind makes it much easier, but you can also get stuffing tubes for the grinder.

Once you have the gear you just need a recipe. We generally use a mix of pork (ground from whole loins, cheap at about $1.75/lb) and wild game, but you can mix whatever you want. We've made dozens of different kinds of links, brats, and hotdogs over the years. It's a fun family activity we often do during the holidays, then freeze the results for use all spring/summer.

yeah I would definitely try it if nothing works. It's a pain in the butt to prep the food a bit because you have to make sure he/she gets all of the nutrients.

what I do is have a staple of chicken and some veggies (celery/carrots/squash) and then tues/thurs/sat I add gizzards, necks, hearts etc and mon/wed/fri/sun I add tripe and/or other things.

if you try it don't be surprised if their stool gets a bit weird for a week or two, but then it goes away.

just read up on different raw food diets and make sure you get a mix of enough things so he/she doesn't suffer from any sort of deficiency.

To make it really simple, I recommend a meat grinder like this and then just toss all of the stuff in there and make patties to toss in the fridge.

also, look up your local butcher shop and swing by on thursday/friday. Typically they prep the meat for sale on weekends on Thursday/Friday so they have tons of leftovers that they don't typically sell and they toss out. I used to get bags and bags (3-5lbs each time) of meat that you can just grind up and it works great.

Best choice is to get a meat grinder. You can get them pretty cheap, or pretty expensive, but the main differences between the prices are if it is electric/manual, the quality of the build (metal hand grinders will almost always beat cheap electric grinders), and amount of meat you can grind at a time.

By the way, the one I marked as expensive is by no means the upper limit of grinders. I use a grinder that came out of the meat section in a grocery store and it would have cost me $700+. But I grind a lot of meat during deer season and it can take anything I throw at it.

You can grind meat by hand or using a food processor/blender, but I haven't tried it so I can't recommend it.
Here's an article on how to do it by hand: http://www.steakeat.com/grind-beef.html

Edit: What's the recipe? I love offal and am always interested in new ways to make it.

I have one of these Weston grinders and it's garbage. Just poorly manufactured. The cast parts are just inexcusably shoddy. The frame has two 1/8" voids, and the auger's stem is squashed. And on top of that, they just took the raw casting, rough from the sand and tinned it. Those parts are supposed to be ground smooth.

You won't go wrong with something like these: http://www.amazon.com/Weston-Heavy-Manual-Tinned-Grinder/dp/B000BQSW44/ref=sr_1_4?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1346344075&sr=1-4

Probably best place to search is in an old auction house or something.

ingredients (precisely)

for double crust :

3 cups flour

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup butter


-


for filling (imprecisely)

2 - 3lbs ground pork

1 cup meat broth, poultry preferred.

1/2 cup ale

1 cup potatoes diced

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced onion

cooking oil

seasonings and spices

1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs

-


This started with wanting to find something to do with a pork loin that had sat in the freezer for 3 months. It is the first attempt at my own variation of Pork Pie based on the recipe in the Game of Thrones cookbook - A Feast of Ice and Fire.


My first step of preparation as usual, occurred days before. On the Friday evening I took the ~4 lbs of pork loin from the freezer to the fridge adding lime salt, basil salt, and pepper. It probably would have been ready to go for Saturday's dinner, but worked fine for Sunday's.


This recipe would certainly work just as well with already ground pork, or sausage meat. But this pork in-particular was freshly ground by my prize $2 garage-sale-aquired meat-grinder (this style) that had been in my freezer for as long in the pork. A frozen meat-grinder (and even slightly frozen meat) supposedly makes for easier operation.


The loin was cut into long strips, and it retrospect it would've been well-advised to cut away the band of fatty connective tissue on the loin and only let the leanest meat through the grinder. This probably would have prevented the clogged grinder that was incurred. Once you have about a dinner plates worth of pork ground up, season it as you wish. I used salt, pepper, Italian breadcrumbs, Greek herb blend, a sprinkle of curry powder, and quite a lot of cayenne powder.


Set the pork aside. If possible, delegate the job of making the crust to a trusty assistant.


This crust is based on the Medieval Pastry Dough recipe from the Game of Thrones cookbook A Feast of Ice and Fire which calls for saffron, which I didn't have at my disposal.


Thank you to Brett, my sexy assistant, who was nice enough to mix, knead, and form the crust.


The recipe recommends first mixing the butter and flour by hand, then mixing the egg yolks and water, adding water as needed until dough is formed. The dough should then be split and rolled out to fit the shape of your pie cooking vessel, then pre-baked in a 325 degree oven for 10 minutes.


I used a circular glass casserole dish, but any ceramic dish would likely be fine. A cast iron pan might work well-enough, albeit at a lower temperature.


While the crust is pre-baking, cut and rinse your potatoes and carrots and boil them for 10 minutes. Bring a pan to medium-high heat, add a cooking oil (sunflower, grapeseed, peanut), add chopped onions and celery. Coat the onion and celery with additional seasonings, spices, rosemary, parsley, garlic, and/or breadcrumbs. Occasionally deglaze the pan with ale and broth.


Drain your boiled veggies, mix them with the contents of the pan. Add more broth and breadcrumbs to achieve desired consistency. My advice here is to place the veggie mixture back into the pot used to boil the potatoes and carrots, cover and put on a low heat.


Clean, reheat, and oil your pan. Brown the pork, stirring frequently. Deglaze. Add the veggies, mix, and
simmer for a few minutes. Transfer to a large bowl stirring occasionally to cool.


The rest is pretty straight-forward. Add the filling to the crusts, bake at 350 for an hour, carve it up, and enjoy.

Do you mean these?
https://www.amazon.com/Weston-Manual-Grinder-Sausage-Stuffer/dp/B000BQSW44

Those were the exact ones I was thinking of when I mentioned the reviews ripping into it. At this point there seems to be just as many 1 star reviews as 5 star.