STX Turboforce II "Platinum" Heavy Duty Electric Meat Grinder & Sausage Stuffer: 6 Grinding Plates, 3 S/S Blades, 3 Sausage Tubes, Kubbe, 2 Meat Claws, Burger-Slider Patty Maker - Black

I have had it for two days and used it once so I can't speak to the longevity of this product. I used to grind raw meaty chicken backs and chicken feet with a cast iron hand cranked meat grinder and with my well known electric mixer meat grinder attachment. the plastic body of the electric meat grinder attachment broke from a chicken foot and the hand cranked meat grinder didn't have a wagon wheel disk so it was kind of a nightmare, very labor intensive, it took several hours to get through a 10 lb back of meaty backs. Chicken feet were even worse. Ultimately, the cast iron grinder started wearing its coating off and, I have to imagine, contaminating the final product. That was what prompted me to buy this product. I'm thinking I should have bought it a long time ago.So I just ground up 9.7 lbs of semi-frozen raw meaty chicken backs in about 30 minutes and that includes the learning curve associated with using this machine for the first time. It took maybe 10-15 minutes to clean all the parts per the instructions. This machine spared me at least two hours of miserable physical labor with a hand cranked meat grinder and it produced a much better end product.I cut the backs up into three pieces to stuff down the machine and quickly observed that the high setting was the appropriate setting for this task. It ground the semi-frozen backs up quite easily. It may have bogged down a little bit on some of the larger pieces but it never jammed up. I ran the initial coarse grind through a second time using one of the appropriate burger disk and it came out exactly how I wanted it-perfect. Changing disks in the middle of the project was quick and easy. I actually did it a few times as I was learning how to make best use of this new tool. It was much much easier than what I was used to with the hand cranked grinder in this respect and in every respect.So it should be pretty obvious that I'm liking this meat grinder. It is a 5 ★device IMO. If it fails prematurely from normal use, I will update this review.

After a lot of research I selected this grinder to prepare my pet food. . Metal parts, foot pedal, air cool, reverse option, easy to clean and grinds chicken bones really well make this grinder a good choice for pet food. Most important thing to remember is the meat and bones must be at least at 34 degrees or below otherwise the machine gets mucked up clogged. Don’t leave your meat on the counter while grinding or it may get to warm. I put batches to be ground in bowls in the fridgeYou need to use the wagon wheel first, then freeze, then grind a second with the smaller plate you want. Get the pedal. It’s worth it. You will need to make sure your meat pieces are cut to fit the hole. I cut my meat into smaller pieces when I bring it home thawed, then freeze the small pieces in ziplocks. That’s a pain and a time suck. But the grinding process really does not take that long. I ground 60 pounds in 2 and a half hours. Don’t grind outside when it’s warm.. Your meat and machine will get too warm and clog. I have only ground bone in chicken. I doubt I will try other bones since that voids the warranty. Chicken Drumsticks and thigh quarters were easy. Only cons so far is the power cord should be longer and the plastic tube push thing. I will order metal one if I can find one.

I bought this to make RAW dog food with. I used it for the first time today and ground up chicken thighs with bone. It worked amazingly. I am a new puppy (German Shepherd) owner and wanted to feed him Whole Foods. I was a little overwhelmed by the idea of the work and all that it would require, but after my first grind and how exceptional this’ll product performed I am no Bolger anxious about it. I can’t wait to buy sausage tubes to use to freeze his dog food in next go around! My only dissatisfaction was that this did not come with a foot peddle as I thought it did. Bummer that would make it even so much easier!

Got to be honest here - really good, durable meat grinders with the power to process a deer or buffalo in one sitting cost about as much as a car payment. And that'd be fine if you have need for something like that. I don't - maybe a half-dozen times a year, and 20-30 pounds of pork butt at a sitting, so spending $400 to $3,000 on a meat grinder doesn't make sense. That said, however, I also don't want to fool with something that I have to jump through a bunch of hoops just to make a few sausage links.I looked pretty carefully at the reviews for this reasonably priced unit, and felt the overall mix of good vs. bad were enough to give it a try. But knowing how these devices work, I wanted to give a really hard look at all aspects of it before actually using it to grind meat.Packaging - "complex jig-saw puzzle" is a fair comparison here. I like to store food processing equipment back in their original packaging between uses to keep everything as clean and pristine as possible. Putting this device and all the trinkets that came with it back in the original packaging is somewhat challenging. The throat and stomper require precise placement in order get the box to closed. I get it that this likely isn't a big deal to most folks, but I don't have a dedicated area I can set this up and leave it on my counter, so being able to easily put things back into the original containers for storage is a pretty big deal for me.Documentation - I liked this. A lot. While extolling the virtues of their product, the manufacturer also took pains to call out the device limitations and caveats. They addressed the need to thoroughly clean and dry the steel grinding plates to prevent blackening in pretty good detail. Which leaves me baffled that so many people complained about that very thing in their reviews. Also touched on was the need to let the machine 'take a breather' after so many minutes of continuous use in order to prevent a thermal overheat shutdown. The manual gives a pretty comprehensive description of how to most effectively use the machine, and what you can't do with it. While not offering a LOT of detail, it did describe each piece contained in the carton, and gave a brief overview of what each was for and how each was used. All-in-all, a pretty good user manual.Add-ins - sometimes the number of add-ins is a red flag, especially when there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't really relate to the device. I guess I don't really understand why those nasty-looking meat shredders are included with a meat grinder. Seems a bit superfluous. But the rest were good. There are a number of special-use grinding plates, which I like a lot. While not the heaviest-duty, they're certainly adequate to my intended uses, and appear to be well made. Three knives were included; most other machines I looked at included just one knife. The sausage-stuffer tubes seem to come standard with every meat grinder these days, but truth be told, they're kind of worthless for stuffing sausage casings. There's an interesting-looking attachment that it turns out is used in making stuffed ground meat thingys; gonna have to give that a try one day. Finally, the foot control. This is kind of a big deal. For one, it pretty much keeps you out of trouble with overheating. It's a BIG help if you're stuffing sausage casings right out of the grinder. It's kind of a poor set-up, though. You plug the foot control into an outlet, then plug the grinder into the back of the foot control plug. Its cord isn't all that long, so you may wind up needing an extension cord. It was BARELY long enough in my case.Grinder/throat/stomper/tray - The stomper is a pretty important piece in meat grinders. It needs to be sturdy, as it takes a lot of abuse, shaped so it fits the hand nicely, and fit tightly into the throat to keep things from squishing past it. This stomper isn't any of those. It's a fairly lightweight, hollow plastic that is sized to store the grinding plates inside and has a plastic cap, so it's big enough that it won't fit anyone's hand easily. It works well enough for strips and chunks of meat; haven't tried it yet with ground meat to see if it's tight enough to prevent already-ground meat from squishing past it. The tray is lightweight aluminum, but quite sturdy and fits the throat tightly enough that I'm not worried it'll fall off when it's loaded down with meat. The throat seems sturdy as far as molded aluminum goes, and the auger and clamping flange are hefty, but also lightweight molded aluminum. As I mentioned earlier, the plates and knives (there are 3) are well made. As the manual points out over and over, none of these components can go into the dishwasher. They all need to be washed by hand with a good anti-bacterial dish soap and dried with a hand towel before storing things away.The plates/knives generate heat while operating, and this heat easily transfers to the auger and throat during continuous operation. To compensate, you need to partially freeze the meat before beginning, and it helps a great deal to put the assembled throat/auger/knife/plate mechanism into the freezer as well. Being frozen didn't seem to have any effect on how well the machine actually ground the meat, it DID seem to have a significant impact on the motor; getting just a LITTLE too much into the auger at one time really made the motor struggle. Not so much of a problem if you keep the feed rate fairly slow, but then you're dealing with thawed meat after a time.The control buttons don't have a clean, crisp feedback to them. The toggling mechanisms for the buttons work well enough, but they have a sticky, mushy feel to them.All-in-all, I'm satisfied JUST enough for me to conclude this machine will fit my needs for sausage making and to keep it. I don't have any issues with cleaning the components after use; I'm well familiar with the need to wash them by hand with anti-bacterial dish soap after each use, dry them thoroughly with absorbent towels (no air drying!), and oil them for storage (good, stiff bottle brushes work well for cleaning the throat, auger, and plates). I use olive oil or grapeseed oil, but any food-grade lubricant should work equally well. I also wash off the oil from when I stored it last, and apply fresh just before each use. As to the motor struggling...well...like I said earlier - buying a meat grinder with enough mojo to power through the toughest cuts of meat and more than just chicken bones comes with a bigger price tag than I'm willing to spend. We'll have to see how well it holds up over several uses.