Product Description
Now health-conscious consumers can connect the Cuisinart Large Meat Grinder Attachment to any Cuisinart Stand Mixer to grind the ingredients they personally select. This versatile attachment grinds meat, poultry, nuts and vegetables, and makes small and large sausages as well. All parts are easy to attach, detach, and clean.
Product Details
- #5226 in Kitchen and Housewares
- Color: White
- Brand: Cuisinart
- Model: SM-MG
- Released on: 2007-04-01
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 6.50" w x 10.50" l, 9.00 pounds
Features
- Large meat-grinder attachment makes freshly ground meat in minutes
- Connects to slow-speed power outlet on Cuisinart stand mixer
- 3 grinding plates for fine, medium, or coarse cuts; 2 sausage nozzles
- Durable metal construction; instructions/recipes included; dishwasher-safe parts
- Measures 10-1/2 by 6-1/2 by 8 inches
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
64 of 65 people found the following review helpful.
Pricey, but well-made
By Bill
People shouldn't give an item two stars just because of pricing compared to Kitchenaid. That's not helpful to anyone. I pulled the trigger on this attachment when Amazon had it for $107 shipped. Yes it's a little pricey, but compared to the Kitchenaid grinder for around $60, here's what I can see as the differences for $$ spent:
- It looks like the SM-MG tray appears to be a little larger than the
KA. (You can order a larger tray at add'l expense with the KA).
- The sausage making attachments are included with the Cuisi. (Again
these are not included, but can be ordered separately for the KA).
- The whole main body of the SM-MG Cuisi is cast aluminum or some other
metal, (whereas the KA body looks to be mostly plastic, and appears
smaller).
- The SM-MG attachment gives you three sizes of metal grinding wheels,
whereas the KA I believe gives you only two sizes.
- The SM-MG attachment, just like the Cuisi mixer itelf, has a three-
year warranty. (I believe the KA mixer, and I am assuming the
attachments, only have a one-year warranty).
I hope I have helped to compare apples to apples here. I know that I sound like a Cuisinart "fanboy," but after weighing all of the pros and cons before purchasing a stand mixer for the first time, (and valuing my dollars spent), I went with the Cuisinart, and I have not been disappointed. (Believe me, I really wanted to buy American here, and KA makes a fine product. If they would up their warranty to three years, I wouldn't hesitate to go with Kitchenaid).
You won't be grinding meat for any commercial applications with this unit. It is rather slow, but does the job. (Grinding 5 pounds of meat for sausage took awhile - a good while. I used the directions to put the mixer on speed "5". It was my first time using the attachment, so I didn't think of maybe cranking it up to "6" or so. I'll have to experiment with that. After all, the SM-MG attaches to the "slow" gear outlet).
I hope this review was at least somewhat helpful.
- Bill
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Good grinder; could be improved
By R. Cane Questions
This grinder is replacing a KA unit that, after 32 years of honest, reliable service, has developed so many cracks in its plastic components that it has lost the ability to remain sanitary.
The Cuisinart unit has a number of advantages: a reasonably large tray, multiple cutting blades, fairly simple mechanism for inserting it into the stand mixer, and a solid metal shaft and housing. It works well, neither faster nor slower than its predecessor. I'm unaccustomed to the fineness of the fine blade, and discovered that it's not alway advantageous to grind as finely as possible. For some purposes (making hot dogs or forced meat, for instance) it's perfect; for a less emulsified texture, it renders the meat too sticky. This is clearly a cook's issue, not a grinder issue.
Two design flaws stand in the way of my giving the grinder 5 stars:
- First, the metal housing is cast aluminum. It is great for avoiding the cracks I found in the plastic equivalent, but it's unwise to put it in the dishwasher (Cuisinart tells you specifically NOT to) because the causticity of dishwasher detergent pits the surfaces of the metal. I would prefer to be able to use a dishwasher to increase the chance of sanitary equipment, and wonder why it would not have been possible to make a dishwasher-safe alloy. Perhaps it would have been cost prohibitive. Purchaser beware: you've got to like using brushes in hot soapy water to keep this grinder clean. On the other hand, the tray component is plastic and easily removable, and it is dishwasher safe. That's the one component I would feel comfortable hand washing, so I can't win.
- Second, the plastic pusher is problematic on a couple of levels. First, it cleverly houses the sausage horns. To be a housing, however, it has to be hollow, and to have a removable cap. Both these characteristics make it less useful as a pusher -- it doesn't deliver as much force as I would like, and I've got to find something to do with the horns while I'm washing the pusher, leading to an improved chance of losing them. Second, it fits too snugly in the barrel of the grinder. If the meat is at all greasy, or you haven't chilled down both the meat and the grinder sufficiently before use, you get a strong suction effect in the barrel. I've found that the pusher is not pushing the meat down forcefully enough, and is sucking some of the remnants back up the barrel. I can solve this easily enough by creating a wooden or metal pusher; but at the price, I shouldn't have to
All in all, I feel this is a well-engineered and cleverly designed piece of equipment that did not go through an adequate amount of end user testing (or pay enough attention to user feedback if it was tested). It would have profited from practicality over cleverness in a few critical run-time use cases.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
I love it!
By Dawn Witt
I used this to make homemade sausage, because we do not like sage in our sausage. I bought pork chops, because it was on sale for $0.99 a pound. The meat grinder was so fast, it ground up one porkchop, before I got the bone cut off the next one.
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