Ground meat is one of the most underrated cooking ingredients. With ground meat on hand, you can whip up burgers, meatloaf, meatballs, and even prepare your own sausages. It’s easy enough to buy ground meat at a store, but wouldn’t it be better to handle the grinding yourself?
If you knew how to sharpen meat grinder blades, then you can save time and money while still cooking up the same delicious dishes as before.
In this article, we will talk more about the process of maintaining and sharpening the grinder blades so that you no longer need to make trips to the butcher just to get your ground meat.
How to Sharpen Meat Grinder Blades in Easy 3 Steps?
Regularly maintaining and sharpening the blades of the meat grinder is essential because you want them to remain serviceable for as long as possible. Failing to properly maintain your meat grinder could lead to it no longer becoming functional way earlier than expected and at that point, you’ll just be left with an expensive paperweight.
It’s also important to know how to properly sharpen the meat grinder blades because you always want that machine to be accessible. If you want to quickly whip up burgers for dinner, you can do so because the meat grinder is ready to work right away.
Step 1: Gather And Prepare the Items You’ll Need for Sharpening the Meat Grinder Blades
Let’s begin by gathering all the items that you will need to complete the blade sharpening process.
First and foremost, you will need items that will keep you safe while sharpening the blades. This means that you will need a pair of safety gloves. Make sure that the gloves you’re getting aren’t slippery or else you may leave yourself vulnerable to an accident.
You will also need a clean piece of cloth to wipe surfaces with.
Go ahead and grab pliers and a screwdriver because they will be needed when you are taking apart the meat grinder. A marked container will also come in handy while you’re detaching the blades.
You should also have some water on hand for cleaning up the parts of the meat grinder and some scrap paper will also be able to help you out.
Lastly, do not forget about picking up some sandpaper at the store. The sandpaper is the item you will use for sharpening the blades so they are absolutely essential.
With all the items now ready, you just need to find a flat, stable surface to use for working. We’re dealing with blades here, so don’t even think about working on them if you have no stable surface to use unless you want to increase your chances of getting injured.
Step 2: Detach the Grinder Blades
Pick up your pliers and screwdriver and get to work on detaching the blades from the meat grinder. This process will be so much easier if your meat grinder has a manual.
If the meat grinder does not come with a manual, then you need to be careful during the detachment process. Keep the parts you’re removing in a marked container. Arrange them in a sequential order so that you know which parts should be installed first once it comes time to put the meat grinder back together.
You can also use this time to clean up the interior of the grinder a bit.
Step 3: Work on Sharpening the Blades of the Meat Grinder
If you didn’t put on the safety gloves while you were disassembling the meat grinder, well now, you absolutely must wear them because you’re about to start working on the blades.
This next thing is not necessarily an essential part of the process, but it may prove helpful to you. What you want to do is to grab either some paper and then cut it using the blades of the grinder. Note how easy or how difficult it is to slice through the paper. That can serve as your reference point for later on.
Moving on, you now have to lay some sandpaper down on the surface you’re going to work on. After that, grab the grinder blade you want to sharpen and line it up with the sandpaper. Try to line the blade and the sandpaper-covered surface up at a 45-degree angle.
Start scraping the surface of the sandpaper using the blades of the grinder now. Scrape the surface of the sandpaper in a circular manner so that each and every part of the blade is making contact and being sharpened.
This part of the process is going to be a bit tedious because you will have to repeat it about 10 times or possibly even more than that if you want the best results.
To find out if you have sharpened the grinder’s blades sufficiently, repeat the test you did earlier. If you can see that the blades are cutting the paper better, then you can move on to the finishing portion of the sharpening process.
The finishing process involves dipping the now sharpened grinder blades in some water. Let them soak a bit so that the excess particles can be shaken loose. Take them out of the water next and wipe them down using a clean cloth.
It is crucial for you to give the blades of the grinder the opportunity to dry completely. If they aren’t completely dried, there’s a good chance that they will start to rust while working inside the meat grinder.
Once the blades have dried, just put the meat grinder back together and you’re done.
As long as you are careful, use the right items, and diligently follow the steps listed above, you should have no trouble sharpening the blades of your meat grinder. It’s even good practice if you want to try sharpening knives later on. By understanding how to correctly sharpen meat grinder blades, you can now ensure that you’ll be able to use that item inside your kitchen for a very long time.
