Before anyone suggests it, the title is not a reference to how I walk!
A while back I absent mindedly placed the end of a wooden spoon into my Coopers of Stortford meat grinder to clear a blockage when the machine was running. Needless to say, the wooden spoon came out shorter and the machine protested vocally. Seemingly (and unsurprisingly) the machine was not intended for mincing wooden spoons. Having stopped the machine and cleared it out, it carried on its duties albeit not sounding too happy. Anyway, I cleaned it up and put it away and thought no more of it.
Jump forward to Wednesday evening of this week and I pulled the machine out to mince 7 kilos of venison. Probably unsurprisingly, there was a screech and a bang as it picked up the 1st of the meat and it refused to work at all other than the motor racing - obviously completely detached from the gears. Facing 7 kilos of venison that wasn't going to improve with age, I had a read through some reviews of kit on here and then got straight on to Amazon and ordered a Butchers Sundries BS180A 1800W Domestic Electric Meat Mincer and Sausage Filler.
Through the wonders of Amazon Prime, the Butchers Sundries machine got to my house before I got home from the office last night.
Whilst I know both the Coopers of Stortford and Butchers Sundries machines fall into the 'hobby' end of the market both in terms of quality and price, out of the box the Butchers Sundries machine has a greater 'heft' and sense of purpose to it than the Coopers of Stortford one.
The Butchers Sundries machine is quite a noisy piece of kit (I think one comment about it on here suggested wearing ear defenders!) albeit probably no noisier than the machine it replaced. Where however the Butchers Sundries machine can't be criticised for a 'hobby' user is that it does seem to crack on through stuff. An exercise that would have taken considerably longer with the old Coopers of Stortford machine (before I stuck the wooden spoon in it!), was completed in probably under 10 minutes. I was using the largest holed cutting plate (as I would also have used on the Coopers machines) and its rate of progress was just far quicker than the previous machine.
All in, the Butchers Sundries machine seems to be an ok piece of kit for budget hobby usage and a significant improvement upon the machine it replaces in terms of what it can process. All I need to do is remember not to absent mindedly stick a wooden spoon into it to clear any blockages whilst it's running!
Ending in similar terms to where I started, I will admit that I do occasionally mince during the week and not just at the weekend...
A while back I absent mindedly placed the end of a wooden spoon into my Coopers of Stortford meat grinder to clear a blockage when the machine was running. Needless to say, the wooden spoon came out shorter and the machine protested vocally. Seemingly (and unsurprisingly) the machine was not intended for mincing wooden spoons. Having stopped the machine and cleared it out, it carried on its duties albeit not sounding too happy. Anyway, I cleaned it up and put it away and thought no more of it.
Jump forward to Wednesday evening of this week and I pulled the machine out to mince 7 kilos of venison. Probably unsurprisingly, there was a screech and a bang as it picked up the 1st of the meat and it refused to work at all other than the motor racing - obviously completely detached from the gears. Facing 7 kilos of venison that wasn't going to improve with age, I had a read through some reviews of kit on here and then got straight on to Amazon and ordered a Butchers Sundries BS180A 1800W Domestic Electric Meat Mincer and Sausage Filler.
Through the wonders of Amazon Prime, the Butchers Sundries machine got to my house before I got home from the office last night.
Whilst I know both the Coopers of Stortford and Butchers Sundries machines fall into the 'hobby' end of the market both in terms of quality and price, out of the box the Butchers Sundries machine has a greater 'heft' and sense of purpose to it than the Coopers of Stortford one.
The Butchers Sundries machine is quite a noisy piece of kit (I think one comment about it on here suggested wearing ear defenders!) albeit probably no noisier than the machine it replaced. Where however the Butchers Sundries machine can't be criticised for a 'hobby' user is that it does seem to crack on through stuff. An exercise that would have taken considerably longer with the old Coopers of Stortford machine (before I stuck the wooden spoon in it!), was completed in probably under 10 minutes. I was using the largest holed cutting plate (as I would also have used on the Coopers machines) and its rate of progress was just far quicker than the previous machine.
All in, the Butchers Sundries machine seems to be an ok piece of kit for budget hobby usage and a significant improvement upon the machine it replaces in terms of what it can process. All I need to do is remember not to absent mindedly stick a wooden spoon into it to clear any blockages whilst it's running!
Ending in similar terms to where I started, I will admit that I do occasionally mince during the week and not just at the weekend...
