Grinding your own hamburger

[Food Scientist]

Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
Originally Posted By: bioburner
Trichinosis in pork in the US has pretty much been eliminated. Developing countries that may still feed raw meat to the pigs could well be a problem.
Stats I just dug up was the possibility of getting the bug from pork here in the US sold thru stores is 1 in 154 million


They deep freeze the meat and it supposedly kills the parasites


I don't think they freeze fresh meat between the packing house and the grocery store. Most of the trichinosis in the US has been eliminated due to following best practices at the pig farms. Floors with grates is an example to allow the poop to fall down beneath the pigs.

In cases where the meat is frozen, such as hams, there are regulations if you are using it as a kill step as part of your HACCP. Read below.

There is a time and temperature relation for that work. The colder it is the less time it has to be frozen. Sticking it in your freezer at home would take a couple of days. A webpage I found on the USDA website shows that it only takes 30 minutes to kill trichinae at -35 degrees F whereas it takes 106 hours to kill trichinae at 0 degrees F.

Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
Originally Posted By: Virtus_Probi
Don't you have to cook your burgers to well done if you mix in pork?
Pork was the scary meat when I was a kid and my mom would cook it to death because she was worried about us getting sick, guess chicken has taken over as the meat to be wary of since then.


Yes, you have to. Ground beef is supposed to be cooked well done as well so it's not an issue. Pork is a much softer meat and the fat in it keeps the patty soft and moist.


Pork doesn't have to be cooked well done. Well done temperature wise is 165 degrees F. Pork (whole meat, not ground) only has be cooked to 139 degrees F to kill trichinae.

 

[tenderloin]

Ground chuck..

 

[aquariuscsm]

My favorite is to grind up some sirloin steaks.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: Alfred_B
There is more surface area in ground meat so the bacteria multiply much faster than on a cut of meat where the surface area is fairly small. You cannot have bacteria free meat, even if you sanitize it like a surgical room .


Good point...now that I think about it, I think I read that part of the difference is also that bacteria on the outside of a "clean" cut will be killed in cooking very quickly but not so much when it's inside the ground beef.

 

[Kira]

That raw hamburger can be flushed down a country toilet to repopulate a septic system is all anyone needs to hear.

 

[DBMaster]

I've done pure chuck, 50/50 chuck and skirt, and pure brisket. Brisket burgers are terrific, but they will shrink a lot. I just have to try that bacon ends and pieces version. It sounds to die for.

 

[CincyDavid]

Sounds like a lot of work...all I have is a little hand grinder. Maybe once a year I'll get ambitious and make my own goetta, and semi-freezing the meat really helps the process along.

for those of you who don't live within 75 miles of Cincinnati, here's an explanation of what goetta is:
from Wikipedia...Goetta is a meat-and-grain sausage or mush of German inspiration that is popular in the greater Cincinnati area. It is primarily composed of ground meat (pork, or pork and beef), pin-head oats and spices.[1] Pronounced gétt-aa, ged-da or get-uh in Americanized pronunciation, and gutta in the Low German pronunciation, this dish probably originated with German settlers from the northwestern regions of Oldenburg, Hannover, and Westphalia who emigrated to the Cincinnati and Dayton area in the 19th century. The word "Goetta" comes from the Low German word Grötte. North of Cincinnati, specifically in the region surrounding Darke, Mercer, Shelby, and Auglaize counties, goetta is often known by the term "grits", not to be confused with hominy grits. This usage of the word "grits" stems from the High German word "Grütze," which is an equivalent of the Low German Grötte.[2][3]

Goetta was originally a peasant dish, meant to stretch out servings of meat over several meals to conserve money.

 

[DBMaster]

I use a food processor because that's what I have. A meat grinder would be better, but I don't do it very often. Partially freezing the meat is a must to work well in a food processor.