I want to get the gear to make my own sucker patties this spring.
I need to get a meat grinder and am trying to find out what kind i need.
Any suggestions?
would a hand cranked old style grinder do the job?

I am a cheap skate so cheaper the better. lol

Funny you should mention this now!

My dear mother found a hand-grinder at a thrift store and bought it for me - $15. I had told her I wanted to upgrade from my little electric grinder to something more substantial.

And so, Andy was happy enough to catch us up some white suckers to test it out with this past weekend.

I ran 3 white suckers through it in about 30 seconds. Wow, I was amazed at the power. Way faster than my little electric. We ran the fillets through twice - and they kinda got over-ground the second time. I think once through with a fine-grained hand-grinder is enough. We're going to experiment a bit more though.

But my experience is this: the big, old hand-grinder is very fast and easy to use. Fillets just disappear into it and ground fish meat comes out the other end in seconds. The auger that feeds the meat works perfectly. With the small electric grinder, it could take you 20 minutes to grind what the hand-grinder will process in under 30 seconds.

We ended up making about 30 sucker nuggets and two huge sucker-burgers. They were delicious.

I would recommend the hand-grinder very highly; in fact I would avoid the electrics completely unless you are going to spend many hundreds of dollars on a professional-grade butcher's electric grinder for processing ridiculous quantities. The results you get with the hand-grinder are so much better, and the convenience of not needing electricity is also wonderful.

I hate to endorse retailers, but here:
http://www.canningpantry.com/meat-grinders.html

is where I was going to buy my meat grinder before I lucked into one at the thrift store. I think the one I got is pretty big, probably ten inches. But fish is VERY easy to grind, so I'm sure the $35 model here would be an excellent fish meat processor. I did end up buying my pressure-canning system from them and their customer service was excellent. I'm going to be pressure-canning suckers for winter meat supplies.

ALSO - this is not off-topic!

Thanks Corey

I was back and forth on the On topic off topic thing.
LOL

I chose

Poorly
;D


Ill look into a hand grinder.
My dad and I are going to chase white suckers soon and figured what better way to top off the day then sucker patties.

Heh, no prob, I'm just using your post for making my point that eating roughfish is not weird or off-topic.

I actually have never had white sucker (except smoked) until this Sunday, and they were GREAT! White sucker meat is sweet and delicious.

I will be eating a lot more of them in the future. They are abundant everywhere and nobody fishes for them or eats them at all, there are millions of suckers all over the USA and if everybody in America ate just one sucker, it would save millions of acres of land and tens of thousands of gallons of food and transport gasoline. The coolest part is that eating local suckers is so green that no greenie-granola person could ever match it, even if they spend millions on locally-grown organic veggies. Because suckers require no natural acres to be converted to farmland and destroyed. They are just an ignored byproduct of natural pristine ecosystems.

We are planning on having a LOT of sucker to eat at the Roundup. If you become experienced enough in the preparation of sucker patties before then, perhaps you could be a master sucker chef. If you are, then you will get to wear a master sucker chef hat.

Which is cool. Trust me.

We'll see!

White suckers are great!
I Used to eat them every spring. Normally it was the first fresh fish we cooked after Ice out.
I would either get them on hook and line or take a hike into the woods by the creek with my spear or bow and come home with a few suckers for the spring fish fry.
Baked redhorse and sucker is also good.
I would Imagine grilled they would be great as well.

Hmm sucker chef hat.
I like this perhaps I have a new goal for the round up. lol

Perhaps Stonecat etouffee as a side dish.
Huh?
I am only Half joking, seriously I wrote it as a joke but in the few seconds it took I am starting to wonder.

Are there crayfish on the root? and can you keep them in Minnesota?

I have not tried for crayfish in the Root.

You can catch them in MN to your heart's desire.

I think there might be plenty!

Crayfish would be a treat like the Morel mushrooms if we could get a few!

The super-chef hats are on order!

I'm glad you mentioned the hand grinder, Corey. I used one a few weeks ago to grind beef, and it took a bit of work but got the job done. I though about trying it out on fish, but then I forgot to do it.

I'll bring the grinder to the roundup, and we can really get the job done. I figure 4 cutters, 2 grinders, 6 stoves and nobody will have to eat any unhealthy store food all weekend.

Can you move this thread to the regular forum where more people will see it?

Corey wrote:

QUOTE:
I have not tried for crayfish in the Root.

You can catch them in MN to your heart's desire.

I think there might be plenty!

Crayfish would be a treat like the Morel mushrooms if we could get a few!

The super-chef hats are on order!

I would seriously make some etouffee or something like that for the feast.
We just need to catch them the night before.
we wouldn't need too many to add some nice flavor.
we could add some sucker chunks to the mix. (Or stonecats lol)

alright Spotlights and minnow nets will be needed for crawdads.

I think Ill hunt for a grinder tomorrow

Well I'm going to bring both my grinders, we'd do well with more.

I will have special hats for chefs but you need to be elected to the chef position.

The goal is to have enough sucker-patties for 100 people.

I think we can do it.

Corey

Oh for sure.
We may need armed guards to keep people away until dinner.

wait 100 people???
How many people do you think will attend?
this thing is growing isnt it. lol

His poor poor lawn
;D

Ivan will deal. He's my buddy. He's making a mint off us anyway.

I'm planning for a hundred people; we will probably have half that. It actually depends on the weather. If it is crappy outside, nobody will show up except for Windknot and his boys. If it is nice, we'll have freaking dozens of roughfishers plus dancing girls. Who knows.

If it rains I say the dancing girls should wear rain coats, I'll even bring an extra.

this is an awesome topic. I was sold with the first patty last year.

I have also been wanting to try a grinder for small panfish, as in way smaller than you thought you would ever keep. I was thinking of removing heads, scales and innards and then running them through. I am hoping that through the grinding and cooking process bones should become a non issue. I would feel better about serving the youngest fish to my girls. They love when I bring home dinner, but I don't indulge them too often with the toxins in many of the waters I fish.

I need to catch some suckers.

Maybe we should seperate the batches of patties by species (white, shorthead and so on).

There we go with the hats again...
Maybe people who want to cook should practice and then post photos of the results on line. Might help the voting.

Also, I think technically 4 patties per person would be reasonable - so that makes 400 patties. Each patty weights about 2 oz, so that is 50 pounds of fillets or 80 to 100 pounds of live fish....

Practically speaking - 50 pounds of sucker patties would feed about 25 to 30, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

Also, I can't remember, are their electric hook ups at any of the campsites? I have a kitchenaid with grinder attachment, does all right on small batches of venison.

Ty

There is electricity in the trailer sites. I will be renting one of those again for my popup, So there will be power.

Mmmmmhmmmm....sucker patties! I can't wait to have them again. Tyler, are you making ceviche again this year? I didn't try that (not sure why) last year, but would like to...

Corey, speaking of off-topic posts heh? You must have just removed that spam post...but it served some good to bring this thread up again!

Yeah, that spam post was great. Wonder why they chose this thread?
One of the very few that get through, but then again we have been harassed with russian spambots recently.

Can't wait for some deep-fried sucker balls at the Roundup! Does anybody have a deep fryer of any kind? Captain Rainbow brought one last year, but he may not attend this year. Even a little electric one would be great.

Note: The super sucker chef hats are still a great idea!

Do you guys season the patties or coat them in anything? Also do you grill them like a regular hamburger? I would really like to try this SOON!

Seasoning - there's only one seasoning: Old Bay. There's no substitute. They have to be fried - I don't know if they would hold together enough to be grilled. maybe!

speaking of those delicious patties and how much I cant wait to have more this year with or without doc were do i get the info for camping down there this time or do we just pool together with whoever stays? who do I pay etc....?

Rich usually reserves a block of campsites so that everybody is in the same area. You just pay the campground when you show up.