Soon we our pigs will be going to the butcher and it will be time for making sausage and ground pork as well as grinding lots of fat for making lard and soap.
For years the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer was sufficient for processing the small amounts of food that needed grinding. But it is woefully inefficient for doing big jobs….and not-so-big jobs.
Recently when I used it for grinding only four pounds of meat it moaned and became quite warm. This would never do for upcoming tasks.
After hours of on-line searching and reading what seemed like hundreds of reviews, I purchased the Weston s-1500 Heavy Duty Grinder for less than I had paid for the KA attachment.
One glance at the hopper/grinder parts gives a first look of the quality of each product.The KitchenAid attachment is mostly plastic and comes with two grinding plates. Both come with a sausage stuffer.
When using the attachments, the mixer continues to run as well, as well as taking up lots of counter space and being quite loud. I have two different sized KA mixers and when using the attachment there is no discernible difference making one better than the other.
The Weston is all metal, and comes with three grinding plates. The motor housing footprint similar to the KA and about half the height, the power cord is stored inside the bottom of the unit, and the noise is no more than that of the KA and the entire weighs much less than the KA.
The price of the Weston, which included an additional 2 year warranty and free Fed-Ex shipping was $100.
Although the KitchenAid attachment costs about $30-$40 you must either already own the mixer or buy one for at least $250 and probably more.
Both machines are good, and do the job. When the time comes to put it to the test in a few weeks I will re-visit this review.
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