Completing Your Food Processing Setup

Meat Mixers

If you've ever tried mixing twenty pounds of ice-cold meat by hand, you know it is physically taxing and uncomfortably cold work. Meat mixers are stainless steel tubs featuring a central axle with paddles. As the axle turns, the paddles thoroughly combine your ground meat with fat, seasonings, and cures.

Why Use a Mixer?

• Consistency: Achieving a uniform blend of spices and meat is difficult by hand. A mixer ensures every bite tastes the same.

• Temperature Control: Keeping meat cold is crucial for safety and texture. A mixer allows you to combine ingredients without the heat of your hands warming the meat.

• Versatility: Most mixers can be operated manually with a hand crank or attached to a compatible meat grinder for electric, hands-free mixing.

Common sizes include 25-pound and 50-pound capacity models, allowing you to process large batches of sausage or burger blends in minutes rather than hours.

Jerky Guns and Dehydrators

After processing a deer or other large game, you often end up with a surplus of ground meat. While ground burger is great, turning that surplus into homemade jerky is an excellent way to diversify your freezer. To do this efficiently, you need two key tools: a jerky gun and a dehydrator.

The Jerky Gun

Forming jerky strips by hand is time-consuming and often results in uneven drying. A jerky gun makes this process efficient, squeezing out perfectly uniform strips of ground meat. This consistency ensures that all your jerky dries at the same rate, preventing some pieces from being brittle while others are underdone.

The Dehydrator

Once your strips are laid out, the dehydrator takes over. This appliance uses low, consistent heat and airflow to remove moisture from the meat safely. While primarily used for jerky, dehydrators are incredibly versatile kitchen tools that can also preserve fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

Electric Meat Slicers

The electric meat slicer is the ultimate tool for precision. While often associated with commercial delis, bringing one into your home kitchen allows you to slice steaks, jerky meat, summer sausage, and cheese with ease. Modern electric slicers use a motor to spin the blade, meaning you don't have to rely on manual cranking or knife skills to get the job done.

Benefits of an Electric Slicer

• Uniformity: You can adjust the cutting depth to your exact preference, ensuring every slice of roast beef or cheese is the exact same thickness.

• Safety: Because the motor does the work, you do not need to apply heavy pressure. This reduces the risk of slips that can happen with manual knives.

• Speed: Slicing a large roast or a block of cheese takes seconds rather than minutes, with significantly less effort.

While it's possible to process wild game with just a knife and a grinder, adding these specialized tools to your kitchen makes the entire process faster, easier, and more consistent. If you are ready to upgrade your food processing setup, visit your local SCHEELS to speak with an Expert.