I always buy ground round or ground sirloin. Do you have Kitchen Aide stand mixer? I bought the grinder attachment for mine znd it works great.

I've had good luck with in store ground and packaged sirloin. Of course, I'm generally making meatballs or meatloaf, not burgers., but I usually buy leaner for those, and I'd use the sirloin for burgers. If there's a proper meat department or butcher shop, you can have them grind anything you like. Many people use shortribs, which is kind of similar to chuck in the connective tissue, but with plenty of fat and flavor. The best flavor, IMO, is bison, however. They used to sell it at the local grocery store, ground to order, but now they only have the one pound pre-packaged packets (ick).

I also have the KitchenAid mixer grinder attachment, and have used it to grind beef. It works well. It's the older version. The current offerings include an all metal one for frequent use. I do like the results, but not well enough to use it for what the butcher can do for me.

(I'm not great at making burgers, but if the meat is an issue it's because it's too good, not too poor.)

It doesn't matter where I buy it, I always have to pick through it to remove the connective tissue that they don't trim off. That would probably be chuck. Sirloin would be too lean for burgers and meatballs. If they'd trim it and only include the hard white fat that you see on rib steaks, it'd be perfect.

For meatballs, I've been buying the leanest ground beef and adding a half pound of ground pork , which is very fatty, for texture.

We prfer the leaner meat for hamburgers. Chuck is way too greasy.

" Costco, ground beef... has been my go to; good, but not that great. "

I've often seen on prepackaged ground beef at places like Costco, Trader Joes, and others, a comment of origin to the effect of "contains beef from the US, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Australia,.......etc." Often, a long list. See if you see that too. No thanks.

I ground my own for years. I am not afraid to get personal with my meat. I buy good quality meat and save the hard fat trimmings. It usually ends up as bird suet blocks but if my meat was too lean I could always toss a few chunks of steak trimmings into my ground beef. I use a Kitchen aide grinder. I have the original and a metal one. I cut my meat into strips which suck down in the grinder easily and use the larger hole disc and put it through twice. I buy ground meat for things like chili.

patriciae

Here they sell ground beef by percentage, not cut of beef. The 80/20 is probably chuck, which is too greasy. Sometimes I can buy 85/15, but 90/10, often sirloin, is too dry. It's not a juicy burger and the texture for meatballs is horrible. The problem with grading ground beef like that is they count anything that isn't muscle as part of that lower percentage. There's very little hard white fat, which is the kind that renders and makes a juicy burger.

When I cook rib steaks on the stove, I cut off the hard white fat to grease the pan instead of using oil. I wish I was able to grind my own ground beef as I'd save the rib steak fat in the freezer for grinding with a leaner cut like sirloin.

Most meatball recipes include ingredients that constitute a panade, to keep them tender and moist when cooked.

There is a butcher at a store we frequent an hour from here that has the best ground pork. A little mixed in with ground beef for meatloaf or burgers is really very good. He will season it for customers or sell it plain. I like to keep some of the plain on hand (in the freezer).

So many of you complain of too much fat in your burger meat. Our favorite is ground brisket sold only by a very talented local hispanic butcher. Yes, plenty of fat and one must pick up their ground meat early that day because he's always sold out closer to dinner time.

We don't eat many burgers so I don't worry about the fat content. Any local grocery store sells ground meat by percentage of fat its said to contain - none sell by cut of meat.

DH no longer hunts, but oddly the only thing I miss about having wild meat here is ground elk in my freezer We ate many more meatballs, meatloaves, burgers when I had a supply of ground elk which is really on the lean side and very different than ground beef brisket so I can't think why we find both enjoyable. I don't care for ground bison or venison,.

Family has a hanging cooler for aging meat, a wrapping station and all the equipment needed to cut and process meat including the commercial grinder. I can't think who has used it in the last several years.

No one right now is raising 'proteins' on the hoof or taking the time to hunt in what is now woods full of hunters and some rather inexperienced.

The trick for Chinese dumplings and wontons and XLB is something that is solid when combined with the filling but when heated turns liquid. Gelatin, lard, etc. You could use the same approach for meatballs. Make a very concentrated, ineffably delicious pork broth, mix in unflavored gelatin, cool to set, then incorporate with the refrigerated pork and other meatball ingredients. There’s no wrapper to contain the liquid but I think enough would stay in the meatball.

I mostly use lean meat for meatballs, then add a lot of machine minced onions and carrots and handfuls of dried parsley. They're good! They don't bounce. But they're really good. :)

ETA: I like beef, most cuts, at least. I like chuck for chuck things. At least IME, ground sirloin has better flavor than ground chuck. Just saying...

Morz8, there's a company called Force of Nature that sells ground elk and ground venison in the kind of sealed square packets you can get ground beef in, only 14 oz., rather than a full pound, and both are 3% beef. I know nothing more. I tried their ground bison (meat, liver and heart blend), and it was fine, but not what I was used to from the butcher. If you want just a little ground elk, it might be a good alternative to the hunt.

They sell a good meat at Sam's Club, they have it in patties already, it's in the fresh meat section and is called "Prime". Mostly they have it in "sliders" size but also sometimes in the full sized patties. If I can only find the slider, I will just make my own patties out of it. It makes a non-dry hamburger. I can't stand a lean HB meat, it's too dry.