Maverick MM-5501 Meat Grinder
By Keith Dewars*

Venison processing.  If you are anything like me, you cringe a little every time you take a deer to the butcher to have it sliced, diced or ground into your favorite steaks, sausages and hot sticks.  Too many times we hear about a hunter not getting the correct amount of meat back.  Or too much garlic in the sausage. Or the meat has an off taste (most likely from being mixed in with a batch from someone else's ill-cared for harvest).  Any number of things can happen when you give up control of your hard-earned venison.

With all of those thoughts burning in the back of my brain, I was pleasantly surprised when I recently had the opportunity to test a Maverick MM-5501 Meat Grinder from Pleasant Hill Grain.  The Maverick MM-5501 is a 575 Watt electric grinder, perfectly suited for normal home use such as grinding meats, cheese, fruits and vegetables.  The benefits of grinding your own food at home are obvious-- control of what goes into your burger or meatloaf, cost savings by buying your products in bulk, and the satisfaction of doing it yourself.

The Maverick comes with a variety of accessories including three grinding dies (coarse, medium and fine), a sausage cone for making sausage, a kebbe maker (a Middle Eastern dish usually made with lamb, bulgur wheat and various spices) and also a bonus cookie maker attachment.  The cutter housing and grinding blades are made of metal whereas the other parts are plastic, which should not pose a problem with the normal light home use for which this machine is designed.

Under normal circumstances I would normally be using this grinder during hunting season, making venison burger out of small chunks and stew meat, but since it was now February I decided to make some simple bulk ground pork to test the machines capabilities.  After purchasing a cheap cut of pork I sliced the meat into two-to-three inch strips and attached the coarse grinding blade to the machine, turned it on and commenced feeding the meat into the hopper.  I was surprised at how easy the auger fed the meat through to the blade, I had anticipated needing to use more pressure to feed the meat into the machine.  I went through four pounds of pork in just a few minutes and after adding seasonings to the ground pork, I replaced the coarse blade with the medium version and repeated the process.  I now had four pounds of bulk ground pork which I can use for breakfast patties, chili or a number of other dishes.  Total time elapsed... about twenty minutes to set everything up and finish the job.

Some things to note about the Maverick.  This is not a commercial machine and you should not expect to grind hundreds of pounds of meat every day with it.  It is perfect for normal, occasional home use.  The Maverick has a built in safety feature in that the feed screw gear is made of plastic.  In the event of something hard, such as a bone, being put into the machine, the gear will break and save the motor and more expensive parts from further damage.  A nice touch (and a big plus) is the fact that there is an extra feed screw gear included in the packaging.  Forward thinking on the manufacturers part.  The Maverick also has a reverse button which allows you to unclog items from the auger.

In conclusion, the Maverick MM-5501 is a nice, inexpensive grinder for the home enthusiast.  I would recommend it.

See Pleasant Hill Grain for the Maverick Meat Grinder as well as Commercial Meat Grinder options.

*Keith Dewars is a freelance writer, avid outdoorsman and owner/webmaster of Malum Internet Properties. He can be contacted at keithd@maluminternet.com.

Disclaimer: Product reviews on any Malum Internet Properties network website reflect the personal opinions of our testers and are for informational purposes only.

Home > Reviews > You are here: Maverick MM-5501 Meat Grinder