Weston #32 Manual Meat Grinder

It is always weird when you have something that you can’t find online anymore.

Years ago, when we owned a small hobby farm, we used to have “sausage making day”. About once per year we would, as a family, gather to make sausage. One of our lodgers owned a powered meat grinder. We would spend the day grinding meat and making sausage.

I do not remember what make or model it was. I just knew that people complained about the motor overheating and other issues.

Fast-forward, we want to make ground meat and sausage again, but we don’t have a grinder. I set my lady to looking for a manual meat grinder. She located a Weston #32.

As far as I can tell, meat grinders are sized by that number. #32 is the larger size. Today, #32 are professional sized electric grinders. The sort of thing which will grind an entire cow in a single session.

The thing is, I think that this darn manual mill could do an entire cow in a few hours also.

It is constructed of two large iron castings. The body and the augur. The body doesn’t seem to have much in the way of machining. The drive end of the augur takes a plastic bushing to center the augur, the front might have been machined round to take the grate.

The augur is drilled and tapped at both ends. The cutter end having been faced as well.

All in all, a low cost of production. Castings are generally fairly low cost. The amount of machining is low.

The one issue I have with ours is that the feet are not on the same plane. I could take it to the shop and cut the legs level, but it isn’t worth the effort.

Currently, we just clamp it to the counter top with C-Clamps.

How well does it work? Very well.

One of the first things I learned is that the retaining ring must be on tight. And you will have to tighten the ring a few times as you use the tool.

The last thing I learned is that I should remove the cutters and grate between passes, as there will be product that gets caught in the cutter.

The second thing I learned was that you don’t really want or need to fill the hopper. Just add enough so that the augur is barely covered, add more as the augur is exposed.

We did a 75% venison to 25% beef fat mix. It was still leaner than the 85% ground beef we get from the store.

It just feed through. There were no difficulties. It took us about 30 minutes to process about 10 pounds total.

We ran the entire batch through a total of three times. The first were one-inch cubes. We mixed the result manually and feed it through a second time, only for mixing purposes. Then we mixed manually a second time and feed it through for the last time.

Everything was then packaged in one-pound packages and frozen.

The only issue we’ve had is that the plastic pushing had a thrust bushing. That was broken before we got it. I will have to machine a replacement.

At this point, we are looking at making ground beef. It isn’t much more work, and I believe we will get superior results.

We are just looking for some cheap beef to come on sale.

Furthermore, We are looking at sausage making, again. We just haven’t gotten there yet.