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BURGER GRINDING QUESTION


gringal

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I've been meaning to have chuck or sirloin roast ground into burger meat rather than buying the mystery packs on the shelves at Walmart, so today I picked a likely looking largish, allegedly sirloin roast from the glass case and asked the butcher to have half of it double ground.  The roast didn't have much fat on it....just about right; good and red........and the butcher took it behind a partition and returned with the finished ground meat, then wrapped it, labeled it ground sirloin and priced it per weight.

My problem is that the ground meat is paler pink than anything on the shelf, which leads me to wonder if

(A) I got a 'fairy changeling' instead of the meat I selected for grinding (or)

(B) The packaged meats have a bunch of blood added for color; most in the more expensive ones.

Anyone else experience this, or will those with experience in the meat dept. cast some light for me on how a ground sirloin roast can turn into pale pink burger meat?:huh:

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Not sure about your question but I always have mine single ground and have never noticed a change in color. But I also buy from a butcher that grinds right in front of me.

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4 minutes ago, pappysmarket said:

Not sure about your question but I always have mine single ground and have never noticed a change in color. But I also buy from a butcher that grinds right in front of me.

As it happened, maybe the butcher didn't grasp my Spanglish "molido double" because it came out single ground.  Where's the butcher who grinds in sight? I have a sort of global Walmart distrust, so would rather see it happen.

 

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Where did you buy it? Was that WalMart? Wow, they have never agreed to do anything for me besides pulling meat out of the glass case. I have no problem with their packaged ground meat, although I find better prices at Soriana, and I particularly like Soriana's pack that contains both ground round and ground pork. BUT I do have a problem with their scheduling: they only have one day a week where they put out the lower-cost ground beef (I used the term "lower cost" loosely, because the price of ground meat is SO high these days). I've been to their "butchers" to ask for another cut to grind, and they won't.

As for the colour, I'm going to guess that, because meat blood darkens as it sits out, especially after it's been ground, that's the only difference. Your roast was pinker on the inside.
 

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8 minutes ago, ComputerGuy said:

Where did you buy it? Was that WalMart? Wow, they have never agreed to do anything for me besides pulling meat out of the glass case. I have no problem with their packaged ground meat, although I find better prices at Soriana, and I particularly like Soriana's pack that contains both ground round and ground pork. BUT I do have a problem with their scheduling: they only have one day a week where they put out the lower-cost ground beef (I used the term "lower cost" loosely, because the price of ground meat is SO high these days). I've been to their "butchers" to ask for another cut to grind, and they won't.

As for the colour, I'm going to guess that, because meat blood darkens as it sits out, especially after it's been ground, that's the only difference. Your roast was pinker on the inside.
 

There is a butcher at Walmart and he did take my request.  Maybe I'm cuter than your are.;)

 I know blood darkens, but we are talking PINK, not red like you would see in the inner part of a roast.  I'd think the ground meat would get darker after sitting around: maybe a sickly brownish red.  Many is the time I've kind of poked at the ground meats (without breaking the wrapping) and found a sort of lighter brownish meat right below the red at the outside, which is where I got the notion that they give it a quick spray of coloring as they wrap it.

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I use the butcher on the carratera on the lake side at about the top of the hill past the last traffic light driving west through Ajijic.  She cuts the meat and asks if I want it ground once or twice.  She trims the meat of fat and I have to ask her to add the amount of fat I want.  Price is less than Walmart and is in a meat locker until she takes it out to cut off what I want.

All this is done in front of me.

Well priced. 

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3 hours ago, Shira said:

I use the butcher on the carratera on the lake side at about the top of the hill past the last traffic light driving west through Ajijic.  She cuts the meat and asks if I want it ground once or twice.  She trims the meat of fat and I have to ask her to add the amount of fat I want.  Price is less than Walmart and is in a meat locker until she takes it out to cut off what I want.

All this is done in front of me.

Well priced. 

Sounds good, Shira!  Do you have the name of that butcher, or the store name?  Is it in the same plaza as Vinos Americas?

 

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I moved here with most of my kitchen stuff. One item being a meat grinder. I have made my own sausage and ground beef for many years.

Costco has some great buys on beef and if you are lucky they might have a brisket.

Have ground one part brisket with one part sirloin. Makes some great burgers. You can always add some pork for fat and flavor.

Most ground meat will star to oxidize in a short time once expose to the air, changing the color. 

Here is a link about grinding your own burger.

http://amazingribs.com/recipes/hamburgers/grinding_your_own_hamburger.html

Happy burger making.

  

burger.jpg

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(Note from the previous post that the thread morphed in the usual way from GETTING ground beef from the butcher to doing the grinding youself.  NO, I don't wanna grind it; I wanna BUY it !)  I used to have to do that for my mom.  Messy little chore. Yuck.

Sine I'm the instigator of the topic, here's the end result:  I wanted a slew of ground beef to make up a taco mix which works for having dinners when my humungous kitchen skylight over the stove is being replaced (second attempt, but that's another tale of woe) and serious cooking isn't going to happen for a day or so.  Thus, the Walmart expedition, where the pale meat resulted from grinding the sirloin chunk.  I cooked it up this morning and it was amazingly good stuff.  Surprise. No problems; not much fat; good flavor.  Of course, it helped to add a pile of onions, mushrooms, garlic, Wooster sauce, tumeric, chili powder, oregano, basil, bay leaf, ginger, cilantro, and cooked tomatoes. Spatula licking Yum.

Thanks for all your input.  I've learned some startling things about what happens to meat after it leaves the animal; most of them scary.  I hope there is more effective oversight in the future so we won't be eating poison with our burgers, but right now it is what it is, and I have four containers of taco filling in the fridge in anticipation of kitchen construction chaos!  Thanks again for referrals to good meat sources, too.  :D

 

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We have a grinder too, with sausage stuffer and another attachment which extrudes the filling into dough balls.

The butcher store across from Soriana has fresh local beef and pork - it is from the slaughter house next door.. They sell their grinding meat in cubes, they will grind it for you. The already ground meat they sell is chorizo, bulk or sausage, they make their own recipe, and it is good. This is from young beef cattle, very lean, a small lot farmer has told me he doesn't use hormones or antobiotics, expensive, and he prefers organic (and I think he talks to them). He sells his cattle at 1.5 years old to the north where they go to feedlots and have to use a lot of toxic dope because they are so crowded. The butcher store also often has pork bellies, take the skin off, of course, then coarse grind into the beef about 20%.

The physics behind this is that with the fat, they quickly sear in that desirable roasted meat flavour, while there is a good chance that will be tender in the middle. This mix is also great for meat loaf or meatballs.

Fun Food Facts: The stock market players who watch "Pork Belly Futures" is because pork bellies freeze very well, and can be sold months in advance. A market analyst discovered the rise and fall of the price of pork bellies, directly lined what was happening, and going to happen to the financial stock markets.

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28 minutes ago, CHILLIN said:

Remember the controversy over "pink slime" a few years ago.

Never buy those frozen, packaged burger patties in Mexico, they have some of sort textured protein which leaves the burger mushy in the middle - even if you over grill them. I hope that's not pink slime

Pink slime

...and that's why I want to have the butcher grind it where I can see what's happening .  Your reference was more than I knew about it before.  I wonder how much pink slime goes into fast food burgers?

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Where does Tony's meat come from? Does he know if you ask him? The family butcher shop near Soriana, you could walk over a 1/2 block with the father and you pick out your animal, maybe even meeting the farmer who raised it! The butcher knows the farmers.

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15 minutes ago, ComputerGuy said:

Great. Always want to meet the animals I'm going to eat. Nah, maybe I'll just keep going going with Tony's road-kill crew.

Gringal, we've gone WAY beyond "make your own" here...

Yup.  Now I'm to get acquainted with the soon-to-be-murdered cow,  find the poor thing's life story, then go to the butcher's and so on?  I'm beginning to see the virtue in buying a plastic wrapped package of anonymous parts in the super.  Plenty of distance from looking into cow-eyes and thinking about it.  YES, I'm a carnivorous hypocrite!:huh:

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To find the Ajjijc butcher after you go past the last traffic light and travel west, look to your left and the shop says cortes fina, good cuts.  They are usually cooking in the big tub attached to a propane tank outside the shop and are next to a raco store.  There are no other stores at that location.  Easy to spot.

They do not speak English but I if you say res molida you will give the women an idea of what you want. Also tell them how many kilos.

They are very nice and always helpful.  I buy my briskets there as well.  I tell them how I want it cut (flat) and they do a great job of giving me what I want and well trimmed.

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Gringal, some brilliant observtions and I'm going to steal the phrase 'mystery pak'.    As to color I would guess that the sirloin was darker on the outside due to exposure to oxygen.   The lighter colored inside suggests either a younger animal or, I suspect, a fresher kill.   Obviously your choice of cut to grind is personal but I like to grind up a beef tenderloin with something fattier, even an amount of ground pork, as flavor seems to come from fat not lean.

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We found the hamburger at Soriana, marked “commercial“ with an 80/20% ratio to be flavorful and juicy.  I suspect it is still available, although it sells out fast. Often, we would go to the meat counter first and ask that they prepare some for us to pick up after we finished shopping the rest of the store. They will do that.

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I'm fairly picky about which ground beef I buy.  I've bought it at Costco, at Mega, at Walmart and its sister Superama, and at neighborhood butchers in Ajijic, Guadalajara, Morelia, and Mexico City.  I refuse to shop at Soriana for political reasons, so have not bought ground beef from that chain.

IMHO, the consistently best ground beef--and I only buy molida de res sirloin--is at Walmart and Superama.  I've never been disappointed in what I've purchased.  The meat is always fresh, flavorful, and a bit leaner than 80/20.  I use it for making hamburgers, large patties which I shape as soon as I get the meat home, wrap the patties in plastic wrap, stack on a styrofoam meat tray and then into a ziplock bag, and freeze.  Of course I also use it for meatloaf or for chili.  I've never been disappointed in the quality of the meat; it seems to be consistent at any Walmart-owned supermarket.

Of course YMMV.

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