We just got our new STX INTERNATIONAL STX-3000-TF Turboforce 3-Speed Electric Meat Grinder. This was the first time we used it, and it ROCKS! We’ve been using the Kitchen Aid grinder attachment for nearly 20 years, and needed to upgrade. We relied heavily on the Amazon reviews in making our decision. We wanted something reliable and that would hold up with heavy use. We ground 50 pounds of meat through it today – 20 # of pork butt, and 30# of beef chuck. This grinder comes with three cutting blades and three grinding plates. We did the coarse and the fine (so 100 lbs total). It literally took only one hour total to do it all (and it took me that long to cut it up and prep it first). It only took 15 minutes to run each of the 20 or 30 pounds through each time. With breaks and prep, clean up etc., we spent about 3.45 hours total, but could have done it in less time if needed. This thing is no toy — it is a serious machine — loud and powerful, but worth the $159 we paid. Easy clean up (after grinding) and lots of benefits over the other kitchen aid grinder. It’s a monster! Features we like: #1: It stays cold while grinding. We chilled our meat after cutting it into strips, and the grinder stayed cold as well. With continuous grinding for long periods of time, the housing was warm to the touch, but not hot. #2: It is powerful. I cut up large strips of nearly frozen meat about 1″x1″x 8″. The meat feeder is offset from where the auger is, so when you drop the meat in, it grabs it and pulls it right down. It bogs down a little, but never missed a beat. It just kept on taking the pieces as I dropped them in. #3: Clean up was OK. It took about 10 minutes (after grinding). We followed the instructions as written, as the parts can become discolored if not treated properly. #4: It is easy to use. We are very familiar with grinding meat, and the instructions were written for ease of understanding, with good tips. Anyone that posted that the machine didn’t work, didn’t do it right (blade in backwards). #5: 3 cutters, 3 die and 3 sausage stuffers, plus a Kubbe attachment, that we’ll have to learn about. There was some history in the instructions, but no recipe. #6: Size. It isn’t huge. The body is smaller than my kitchen aid, but the parts for grinding are much larger than the kitchen aid, making it able to work much much faster compared to the kitchen aid. #7: The aluminum parts make the meat go through quickly without getting all stuck, as it does with the plastic kitchen aid. Down sides: #1 We also made sausage. We did a 3# Summer sausage and 3# of snack sticks. The summer sausage went through OK, but the snack sticks took a long time and the meat kind of balled up inside the unit, and didn’t process through like it should have. We did not have the meat as cold as when we ground it, so that could have been part of the problem. It could have been the stickiness of the meat due to the cure etc. We’ll be contacting the company and looking for more clues to improve the process next time. Slow processing was one of the reasons we didn’t do more sausage with the kitchen aid. If you are a serious sausage maker and will be doing more than a few pounds, you may want to look at a stand alone stuffer. #2: The instruction manual is not extensive. We understand what to do, because we have experience. If you are new to grinding and stuffing, you might want to put some dedication into learning about processing meat, buy a book, etc. This may be a little intimidating to someone that has no experience at all (but it is simple to use, so don’t be turned off. #3: Cleaning the unit after stuffing sausage was pretty tough. I need to find a good bottle brush and some other utensils to get all of the meat and fat out of the unit when done. It was pretty sticky. It would be nice if the manufacturer would send some cleaning utensils with the unit. #4: It is loud, but we knew that when we bought it. It is powerful, and the noise is expected. The price and quality make up for the noise.If you are only going to do a few pounds of meat here and there, this machine is probably more than you need. If you are going to grind a lot of meat or grind frequently, then this machine should be very useful to you. The components feel high quality, there was thought put into the design, and it can put out a lot of ground meat in a very short period of time. Sausage stuffing? We are not done with that angle and need to see if it is us or the machine that caused it to be so labor intensive. Highly recommend this for the price! I will be buying large cuts of meat with this unit in mind.