Can A Vitamix Grind Bones: A Comprehensive Guide

Can a Vitamix grind bones? The answer is yes, but only certain types of bones. Your beef and pork bones are too hard for your blender to handle, so you can’t use those ones. However, chicken and fishbones can be ground up with ease by your high-powered blender.

The main reason people want to grind their own bones is so that they can provide fresh and healthy meals for their pets. It’s also cheaper than buying canned pet food from the store.

So how do I get started? Read on for a comprehensive guide on grinding bones in your Vitamix blender – including what type of bone works best in your blender, how long it takes to cook, and more! In this article, we’ll show you how to get started grinding bones in your Vitamix!

What Type of Bones Can I Grind In My Vitamix?

The Vitamix blender can grind up bones depending on what type of bone it is. While the blades are strong enough to break down larger types of bones, there are certain ones that should not be used in your Vitamix blender.

If you use a Vitamix blender, it can grind up soft bones like chicken bones and fish bones. Beef bones and pork bones are too hard for the blades to handle properly. If they get stuck in your Vitamix blender’s blade assembly, this could damage your machine or even break it entirely!

To prevent any of these things from happening make sure not to place beef or pork bones into your machine. It’s also important that you don’t try grinding anything besides food products with bone fragments inside them because small objects may jam up the blades as well.

Bone Grinding Guide for your Vitamix

Chicken Bones (soft – you can safely grind these in your Vitamix)
Fish Bones (soft – you can safely grind these in your Vitamix)
Beef Bone (harder than chicken and fish but may still work if you’re careful with how much pressure you apply when blending.)
Pork Bone (too hard for usual use; will damage blades or wear them out quickly).

Please note these guidelines aren’t always accurate and you may still use beef or pork bones in your Vitamix. It’s just not recommended for regular use as the harder bone can cause damage to your blender.

For more information about which bones are safe for grinding on a daily basis, please contact Vitamix customer service. Please note that it is possible there might be some exceptions depending on how powerful the motor your specific machine has available to it; however, this generally will hold true with most models of blenders including all current ones from Vitamix like the Ascent Series.

Why Should I Grind Bones?

There are a number of reasons you might consider grinding bones. Making dog food or cat food is one reason, making bone broth to add to recipes is another good use for ground meat bones.

In addition to using these two methods, there are also many other ways in which you can add bones from your butchering endeavors when processing meat into the diet. Let’s take a look at some of them here.

Making Pet Food

It turns out that ground bones contain more than 20 essential nutrients required by dogs and cats including calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and zinc just to name a few.

Most people feed their pets processed commercial diets containing additives such as artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners but this is not ideal. Commercial diets have been linked to a number of ailments in pets including allergies, arthritis, and heart disease.

In addition, they are often high in grain which can lead to obesity or diabetes.

Making Bone Broth

The process you would go through here is very similar except that instead of just using the bones from your butchering endeavor, you would add vegetables such as carrots and onions along with herbs like thyme and parsley for additional flavor.

It’s best if these were organic vegetables because this way there will be no harmful chemicals on them when you eat them.

You can add bone broth to any recipe in place of stock cubes for a tastier alternative.

How to Grind Bones in a Vitamix Blender

This is a step-by-step guide on how to grind bones in a blender. This method may work for any type of blender, but the Vitamix blender works best because it has an extremely strong motor and can power through anything you put into it (including hard pieces like bone).

The benefit of using the Vitamix Blender is that your ground up bones come out completely smooth without any chunks or jagged edges.

Prepare the Bones Beforehand

If you want to really soften the bones before blending them, you can soak them in a bowl of water overnight. Remove the bones from the water, dry them, and then put them in the oven until they are completely dry. This method will give you a more powdery result and is recommended if you are trying to grind pork or beef bones.

Add the Bones to the Blender

Add the pieces of bone to the Vitamix Blender and secure the lid. Water can be added to the blender depending on the recipe. If you want dry bone powder then don’t add any water.

Turn on full speed and blend for 60 seconds or until all pieces have been ground into a fine powder. You may need to use the pulse button to ensure the bones are evenly mixed and ground.

If you are working with larger, harder chunks like chicken backs, it may be better to add only one at a time while pulsing in intervals so that they can get evenly blended rather than just crushed. The more powerful your blender is, the smaller these chunks will become!

Sieve the Bone Mixture

If you don’t mind a few chunks in your bone powder then you can remove the mixture from the Vitamix container and use it in your recipe.

If you want ultra-fine powder, the best thing to do is put the bone mixture through a sieve to separate the larger pieces of bone. Once you have caught the larger chunks you can run them through the blender again until you have your desired consistency.

Clean-up & Storage

Once you’re done grinding everything together, clean up any leftover residue from your blender by running hot water over each component under the sink faucet. It’s recommended to run your Vitamix container and blade through the dishwasher for a proper clean.

Once everything has dried out completely being washed off, you can easily reassemble the blender and store it as usual.

Can A Vitamix Grind Bones – Final Thoughts

The main reason people want to grind their own bones is so that they can provide fresh and healthy meals for their pets. It’s also cheaper than buying canned pet food from the store.

Now that you know how to get started, you are well on your way to grinding bones in your Vitamix blender – including what type of bone works best, how long it takes to grind, and more!

After reading this article, you should now know how to get started grinding bones in your Vitamix!