95-97% Lean ground beef

BanditNOLIMIT

BanditNOLIMIT

Well-known member
Trusted Member
Finding super lean ground beef is a tall task here in Canada. The leanest I can seem to find at any given grocery store here in Ontario is 90/10, maybe a little leaner. I’ve thought about grinding my own meat for a while and finally decided to invest in it. Cabelas has their meat grinders on sale, I bought their smallest model. Seems adequate enough for small personal use.

Zehrs has sirloin tip roasts on sale this week for 5.99/lb.

Trimmed all the way down, these roasts should be approximately 96/4 lean according to Cronometer. (I also trimmed any extra fat that the grocery store didn’t).

Anyways, I was able to yield 7lbs of super lean ground beef for about $50 (+$70 investment for the grinder).

Honestly, I kind of butchered the first roast (no pun intended) trying to figure the grinder out. I wasn’t being patient enough and jamming way too big of chunks down the thing. So the meat from the first roast turned out a little mushy. Oh well, lesson learnt.

I’ll definitely be doing this again any time a lean cut of beef goes on for a great price.

Might be worth the investment for some guys here if they want to implement red meat in a lower fat diet but don’t want to scarf down crappy cuts of steak like sirloin tip or round.

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Tips are really lean. At $5.99 thats a good price.

If you want it to grind better make sure the meat is really cold.

Tips are s usually 95% as is without trimming, but hey nothing wrong with taking all the outer tissue out.

You don’t want grocery store ground anyways, it is made with tube beef. Lots of connective tissues and lower protein content.

BTW, you may not find tips at that price too often, that is below what they paid for them. I think last week tips were $62.5 a pound to purchase from the packinghouse.

Lot so other cuts will work, like rump. Insides and so on.
 
Oh I almost forgot to mention, try to not run the grinder empty too long, the only thing that lubricated the grinding plate and blade is the meat. So make sure you get it loaded quick and don’t run for an extended period of time when it’s all done. Don’t want to wear the plate and blade out too fast.
 
@Sorbate
Thanks for the info! I’ll take that all in to consideration for next time. I’ll prep cut everything so it’s ready to load up.

As for cuts; would top sirloin be comparable in terms of leanness?
 
BanditNOLIMIT said:
@Sorbate
Thanks for the info! I’ll take that all in to consideration for next time. I’ll prep cut everything so it’s ready to load up.

As for cuts; would top sirloin be comparable in terms of leanness?
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Top sirloin has a fat cap, but once you take it off the rest is solid muscle. You would lose more weight trimming.

Normally it also costs more.
 
BanditNOLIMIT said:
@Sorbate
would you be able to recommend what style of knife I should pick up for chopping up these roasts?
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Home style knives I have no idea. I use Victorianox that I buy from a meat equipment supplier. At home I use whatever my wife came with when we moved in together like 30 years ago, lol. They are not great, but I’m only chopping veggies, and I take it into work and sharpen it.

Get you knife sharpened maybe a butcher in the area will do it
 
I usually get lean ground beef if I can but when it's not available I've always wonder if a fattier package works out to be the same value money wise if you simply drain off the excess fat when you fry it? My only concern is $/g of protein, I don't care about the fat.
 
gondar1 said:
I usually get lean ground beef if I can but when it's not available I've always wonder if a fattier package works out to be the same value money wise if you simply drain off the excess fat when you fry it? My only concern is $/g of protein, I don't care about the fat.
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I have noticed the lean ground beef has much more grease then it did 4-5 years ago. I could cook it out before. Now I have to drain it.
 
Cheapshot said:
I have noticed the lean ground beef has much more grease then it did 4-5 years ago. I could cook it out before. Now I have to drain it.
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That is because they use bulk tubes in the ground. Same type of tubes you avoid on the counter. They buy it in larger tubes bulk and add it to their trimmings. It saves the grocery store about 10 to 20 cents a pound.

20 years ago the packing houses came up with great idea to sell off the off cuts (not bad cuts, just ones no one normally bought) and ground it coarse and put it into tube that was back flushed with co2 to extend shelf life. It was great, consistent, cheaper than buying muscle cuts like insides, flap meat and such for ground. It was coarse enough that you could tell it was whole muscle cuts, you know the good stuff. I used it for years to add to my trimmings.

Then about 5 years in they changed it to a fine grind, quality went down, cheek meat was added (I could see the cheek color) and some other stuff was added, I assumed the lean scrapings off the bone.

I stopped purchasing then because it was greasier and knew it wasn’t higher quality. See tendon, bone skin is considered lean, but it’s not lean muscle.

Fast forward a few years and beef prices climbed one year (this was before covid, but right after Trudeau got in and our dollar tanked because of the lack of belief that he could do a good job economically. Beef is sold internationally and when our dollar drops, other places buy more and it causes a shortage and price increase.

So I think, maybe I’ll just put a bit of tube into each batch of ground so I can keep the price down for customers. I bought some.
It was horrendous crap, finely textured meat, like the crap we used to use in the big packing house to make bologna, because once you emulsified it into a consistency of bread dough, no one knew it was scrapings off the bone.

I couldn’t use it. Well I did, but honestly I couldn’t get myself to put more than 1 lb of that crap into a 50 lb batch of ground. Took me forever to use up the 4 50lb cases I bought.

So this is what they are using at the grocery store, and I hate to say it, likely most butcher shops.

I only grind whole muscle cuts. Whatever I can find at a good price. So if sirloin tips are being sold on a special, I’ll buy 10 cs of that, or insides, flap meat, tenderloin side muscle, orbitor meat, or tri tips (tri tips ifind are too fatty and need trimming though). Right now I bought whole shoulder clods (it would be like your delt muscle). These used to be the cuts they put in the coarse ground tubes.

I get comments all the time how our ground is so much better.

I hate to say it, but the only way to avoid that crap is to find a butcher you can trust or grind you own.
 
Second batch of ground beef was successful, went a lot smoother AND was just about as cheap as the first one.

This morning I bought all the lean steaks that were marked down at my grocery store. I ended up with about little over 6lbs.

This time around, the process took me about 20 mins total to do between cutting everything up, grinding it, and packaging it for the freezer. Dealing with steaks rather than roasts saved a lot of time too. They were already trimmed of basically all the fat, and I wasn't having to deal with any connective tissue. I think this is what I'm gonna be doing going forward.

Marked down 50% ended up costing me around $5-6/lb. The steaks were a mixture of sirloin tip & eye of round.

Man, I love this thing! I'm really enjoying the process of doing this.
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BanditNOLIMIT said:
Second batch of ground beef was successful, went a lot smoother AND was just about as cheap as the first one.

This morning I bought all the lean steaks that were marked down at my grocery store. I ended up with about little over 6lbs.

This time around, the process took me about 20 mins total to do between cutting everything up, grinding it, and packaging it for the freezer. Dealing with steaks rather than roasts saved a lot of time too. They were already trimmed of basically all the fat, and I wasn't having to deal with any connective tissue. I think this is what I'm gonna be doing going forward.

Marked down 50% ended up costing me around $5-6/lb. The steaks were a mixture of sirloin tip & eye of round.

Man, I love this thing! I'm really enjoying the process of doing this.
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So you actually got better hamburger for cheaper. Smart
 
BanditNOLIMIT said:
Second batch of ground beef was successful, went a lot smoother AND was just about as cheap as the first one.

This morning I bought all the lean steaks that were marked down at my grocery store. I ended up with about little over 6lbs.

This time around, the process took me about 20 mins total to do between cutting everything up, grinding it, and packaging it for the freezer. Dealing with steaks rather than roasts saved a lot of time too. They were already trimmed of basically all the fat, and I wasn't having to deal with any connective tissue. I think this is what I'm gonna be doing going forward.

Marked down 50% ended up costing me around $5-6/lb. The steaks were a mixture of sirloin tip & eye of round.

Man, I love this thing! I'm really enjoying the process of doing this.
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The bacteria level is much higher on the old discounted stuff (reason for why it is discoloured) and when you grind it you give the bacteria a ton of surface area to grow on.

So as long as you freezer right away and don’t pull it out to defrost for a couple days you will be fine. So once defrosted use it.

Other than that is is perfectly fine.
 
Sorbate said:
The bacteria level is much higher on the old discounted stuff (reason for why it is discoloured) and when you grind it you give the bacteria a ton of surface area to grow on.

So as long as you freezer right away and don’t pull it out to defrost for a couple days you will be fine. So once defrosted use it.

Other than that is is perfectly fine.
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Yup right in to the freezer. Always thaw it the day of cooking👍
 
Hmmm I normally buy 12 lb of Sirloin tip at a time, costs me about $72. Built a few connections working in restaurants for a long time. Here in Toronto, prices for any meat or fish is super pricey. Tho ive found a few places to get stuff like ground chicken for decent price.
 
The_Night_King said:
Hmmm I normally buy 12 lb of Sirloin tip at a time, costs me about $72. Built a few connections working in restaurants for a long time. Here in Toronto, prices for any meat or fish is super pricey. Tho ive found a few places to get stuff like ground chicken for decent price.
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That's a great price. is it already butchered or do you have to?
 
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