Before grinding, store the meat in a freezer. When you start grinding the meat should be almost or partially frozen. Remember, meat freezes at 27° F to 29° F (not 32°F like water). Consider returning the meat to the freezer for a short period of time between the first and second grind, especially if your meat has been out in the open for longer than anticipated. Though it might take 20 minutes to get it back down to below 30°F this can actually speed up your process as the meat will grind much quicker. After grinding the second time store the meat in the cooler while you are preparing to mix and stuff. When the meat temperature is between 41° F and 140° F, bacteria can duplicate in 20 minutes, meaning a single cell of bacteria can replicate to over 1,000,000 in just over 8 hours.

When making any type of meat product, whether it’s jerky, bratwurst, cured or fresh sausage. It’s very important to ensure that you are avoiding the danger zone. The danger zone is any temperature between 41 and 140° F. During any step of the process including grinding, mixing, and to a lesser extent stuffing, keeping the temperature of meat as close to 30° F is vital. It will keep your meat safe for consumption and give you a better finished product with a longer shelf-life.

Before grinding, store the meat in a freezer. When you start grinding the meat should be almost or partially frozen. Remember, meat freezes at 27° F to 29° F (not 32°F like water). Consider returning the meat to the freezer for a short period of time between the first and second grind, especially if your meat has been out in the open for longer than anticipated. Though it might take 20 minutes to get it back down to below 30°F this can actually speed up your process as the meat will grind much quicker. After grinding the second time store the meat in the cooler while you are preparing to mix and stuff. When the meat temperature is between 41° F and 140° F, bacteria can duplicate in 20 minutes, meaning a single cell of bacteria can replicate to over 1,000,000 in just over 8 hours.

Like mentioned above, the freezing point for meat is not 32° F, it is 27° F to 29° F. Besides keeping the meat from reaching the Danger Zone there are also other benefits to freezing druing processing. Working with partially frozen meat makes the meat move down the throat of the grinder and pass through the knife and plate easier and faster. This puts less strain on your equipment and your meat.

As the meat warms up and the fat becomes stickier it becomes more difficult to move down the throat and to pass through the knife and plate of the grinder. Freezing the meat before grinding also prevents the fat from smearing. This helps avoid more difficult protein extraction and gives a better texture to the end product.  

The difference between higher and lower temperatures of meat when grinding is substantial. When grinding through a 3/8" plate with a Walton's #22 Meat Grinder at 39° F, the grind takes about 43 secs to grind 4.2 lbs of meat. This is about 1 lb per 10 secs. When the temperature of meat was dropped to 31° F the grind time is decreased to about 21 secs for 4.5 lb of meat. This is about 5 secs per pound. This makes a huge difference when processing large batches. The lower temperature of the meat the more efficient the second grind will be.

Because the ground product is being fed into the throat, knife, and plate, there is more chance for the meat to get stuck to the sides and not feed through th auger properly. The colder temperautre meat will help avoid these issues. When stuffing using frozen meat helps speed up the stuffing process, especially when stuffing snacks sticks or using high-fat content meat blocks.

Grinding meat is one of the most common things that most home processors do, it doesn’t matter what sausage you are making or if you are just making a bulk ground product to add to products later, it all has to go through a grinder and getting it ground as quickly and cleanly as possible is going to help you make the best product you can.

Check out “How to Grind Meat - Tips & Tricks - Meat Processing Equipment 207”  for more factors on what affects the length of time it takes you to grind your meat, and remember, the longer it is out of the cooler the more chances it is going to have to grow microorganisms and the warmer the meat is the harder it will be to grind.