I have a question about ground beef.There is this market that sells ground beef for 99 cents a pound not to exceed 30% fat. There is this other market that sells ground beef for $4.00 a pound not to exceed 7% fat. Now when I use ground beef for meat loaf, burgers, or chili I always cook it in a way that the fat drains away. Sould I pay more for the extra lean ground beef and still drain the fat or use the fatty ground beef and still drain the fat. Am I acheiving the same resuls? Do they both turn out the same in the end as far as fat content is concerned? Any thoughts? Thanks

x630017, hand in hand with consideration of fat content, it may be useful to determine the cut of beef that the ground beef came from....

The Flavor of meat from chuck (fatty) will be far greater than a tender filet mignon (not that anyone would grind a filet for meatloaf!).

You might want the butcher to double grind a chuck roast/steak or sirloin, including/excluding the proportion of fat you choose.

And if you prepare/cook your meat the day it's ground, you'll get the safest meat with the best flavor.

I agree with MsMarm. The best thing is to do as she suggested...ask the butcher to grind a chuck roast for you. My suggestion would be to tell him you'd like no less than 15% fat for things like burgers and meatloaf. Anything less (such as the 7%) is really too lean which means not much flavor. It can also be more dry.

You asked about the fat draining. Some will drain off whether you get the 15% or 7% ground meat. However, if you start with the 15%, you'll have more fat left in the meat...and more flavor.

I meant to reply to this a couple of weeks ago but the time just slipped by.

I grind my own meats. And I make my own sausage.

You can get a fairly inexpensive electric meat grinder - that can be used for other stuff that can't be put in a food processor - and you know exactly what is going into your ground beef, pork, lamb, turkey, etc.

I started this many years ago when I had friends who were hunters and would give me wild game and I wanted to make sausage.

Most meat grinders are sold with sausage stuffer funnels and are pretty much foolproof.
I have one made by Northern Tool but the small Deni - sold at Amazon, works quite well and doesn't take up much space.

I buy my sausage casings from this place, http://www.meatprocessingproducts.com/s ... sings.html located in Utah.
I use the sheep casings as I have found them to be the best for tenderness and texture.