Meat mixer grinders: a buyer’s guide for Australia and New Zealand

Several machines reduce meat; they differ in what else they do to it. A grinder with a feeding worm carries big pieces to the working worm without bridging. A universal grinder cuts fresh meat, cooked meat and frozen blocks on one worm and plate system. A bowl cutter chops as its bowl turns and can go all the way to a smooth batter. A grinding head on a vacuum filler minces while the filler portions. Only the mixing grinder mixes in its own hopper.

The other common route uses two machines: a standalone mixer seasons the batch, which is then tipped into a grinder for the final mince. Each job gets its own capacity, and one mixer can supply more than one grinder. The cost is a second handling step, a second machine to wash, floor space for both, and a batch that can warm while it waits. Grinding first and mixing afterwards also works, but it puts the finished grain through the mixing action.

The catalogue machines of each kind are listed above, under the same headings as the table. If most of your volume is plain mince, a grinder with a feeding worm may be enough; if nearly every batch is seasoned before the final grind, a mixing grinder saves a machine and a transfer. For emulsified products, look at the bowl cutter range.

Every batch follows the same path through a mixing grinder. The drawing numbers the five parts it passes, and each step below explains one of them.

Seydelmann equips the mixing unit with two strong arms as standard and offers paddles as an option. Its data does not rank one above the other, and on paper neither should you: the right tool depends on how firm, sticky, wet or delicate your mix is.

The notes below describe, in general terms, how each tool moves the mass. To choose, run your own recipe with each where you can and compare the batches: how evenly the seasoning spreads, how the fat looks at the plate, how the mince holds together. Trials and support explains how to ask about a demonstration or trial.

A mixing grinder’s data sheet carries two capacity figures, and only one of them is your batch. Hopper content, in litres, is how big the hopper is. Mixing capacity, in kilograms, is the load the mixing unit is published to handle. Plan every batch on the kilograms.

Seydelmann does not say why the hopper holds more than the mixing unit is rated for, but in general a mixer needs free space above the batch. Fill the hopper to the brim and the arms or paddles have no room to lift and turn the mass: material near the top rides around unmixed, and seasoning ends up patchy through the grind.

The pattern holds across the range: the MD 114 lists a 75 l hopper for 50 kg of mixing capacity, the ME 130 has 170 l for 100 kg, and the ME 130-3 has 300 l for 150 kg. An 80 kg batch would need splitting into two loads on the MD 114 but goes into the ME 130 in one, and split halves can come out slightly different.

The cutting set decides the grain of the mince. It starts with a pre-breaker, which opens up the mass as the worm drives it into the head. A knife then sweeps across the face of a hole plate, shearing the meat off as the worm presses it into each hole. In a longer set, an intermediate plate and a second knife cut the product again before the final hole plate sets its size.

VEMAG’s published data for its Grinder 980 and Grinder 982 grinding heads shows the two usual layouts. A 3-part set is a pre-breaker, a blade and a final hole plate. A 5-part set is a pre-breaker, blade 1, an intermediate plate, blade 2 and the final hole plate: two cutting stages, generally chosen for a finer or more even result in one pass. The sets for each Seydelmann mixing grinder are settled when the machine is specified.

The number in each Seydelmann model name matches its published hole plate diameter: 114 mm on the MD 114, 130 mm on the ME 130 and ME 130-3. That is the plate’s outside size, which decides which plates and knives fit; it says nothing about the holes. A separating set, optional on all three, holds back bone, cartilage and sinew at the plate; on the Grinder 982, separation takes out rind too.

Treat the table as a starting point. Your raw material and the product you sell set the plate; settle it by grinding trial batches on two or three plates and comparing the mince — and the fat — from each.

A clean cut depends on three things you control: cold raw material, a sharp knife sitting flat against its matching plate, and a batch that is not worked longer than it needs. When fat warms and softens, the knife drags it instead of slicing it and spreads a thin film over the lean. That is fat smear: a greasy, pasty look that can also dull the colour and weaken the bind.

Worn knives, a knife and plate that no longer meet evenly, and trim that has sat out of the chiller all make smear more likely. Mixing adds friction of its own, so mix until the batch is even, then grind.

On frozen material, read the data closely. Seydelmann publishes its three mixing grinders for fresh meat, slightly frozen meat and cooked products, as well as liver and spinach; none of the three names frozen blocks or a sub-zero temperature, although Seydelmann’s general grinder text also mentions frozen meat. Several grinders with a wide conical feeding worm, and the universal grinder, do name frozen material, from frozen pieces down to −10 °C on the AE 130 to frozen meat blocks on the AU 200 U. Each is listed below with its published wording.

Size a mixer mincer on two numbers: the kilograms in your usual batch, which the mixing capacity must cover, and the kilograms an hour you need through the plate. Treat published hourly output as a ceiling, not a working rate: loading, mixing, emptying and cleaning all eat into a working hour. The model comparison sets the three side by side.

Then look at the whole day: how many mixes you run, how often the machine is stripped between them, how it is loaded, and where the mince goes next. One size up can cost less in lost time than a smaller machine run at split batches, but a batch far below the mixing capacity may not turn over as well in a large hopper.

The table lines up the three Seydelmann mixing grinders in the Vemag Australia catalogue on the figures a purchase turns on: hole plate diameter, published hourly output, motor rating, hopper content, mixing capacity and weight. Below it, a chart places them by output among every grinder in the catalogue that publishes an hourly figure, so you can see where the mixing grinders sit among the feeding-worm and universal grinders.

In a typical line the mixing grinder sits between the chiller and the machine that fills or shapes the product: trim and fat go in, seasoned mince at its final grain comes out. It is common practice to pre-grind trim coarse on one of the plain grinders first, then mix and finish it on the mixing grinder, spreading the cutting over two passes.

The other route is a grinding head mounted on a double-screw vacuum filler. VEMAG’s Grinder 982 suits the HP series and grinds at up to 8.7 t/h, depending on product; with its separation device it also takes out bone, rind and sinew. The Grinder 980 suits HP series fillers and the Robot 500, depending on product, reaching up to 4 t/h with optional separation. Both grind to final size while the filler portions, but neither is a mixer, so the mass still needs mixing upstream.

A mixing grinder has more product-contact surface than a plain grinder: the hopper and mixing unit as well as the worm, its housing and every piece of the cutting set. All of it is washed after every shift and between recipes that must not meet, so how the machine is built goes a long way to deciding how long that takes.

The published data for all three Seydelmann mixing grinders describes the same construction. Before you order, ask to see the cutting set and worm come out and go back in, and the hopper and mixing unit cleaned, and put a stopwatch on it: that is the routine your team will repeat at every changeover.

The mixing grinders appear on five of the catalogue’s product pages. Each page lists the machines matched to that product within the wider meat processing equipment range.

Vemag Australia, the official Seydelmann distributor across Australia and New Zealand, works from offices at Redland Bay in Queensland and Rosedale in Auckland. Each quotation is built around your production, from a single mixing grinder to a full mince line; ask the sales team about a demonstration.