Even if you did have the space it’s still impractical to buy a steer if you can’t butcher it yourself.
Or you could go down the Alex Jones route.
Not sure about whether you should dry age or wet age “long pig”, but I’d definitely go heavy on the seasoning.
Stranger
I’ve helped Mr.Wrekker field dress many deer. It’s not hard. Messy and stinky.
There are videos online on how to do it.
We purchase a side of beef (half a steer) every couple of years. I think we paid around $800 to the rancher (who had it delivered to the butcher for us), and another couple of hundred to the butcher for butchering it and packaging it.
People around here often go shares in a side of beef. There are still small abattoirs here which will cut and package to your specifications. My neighbors raised a hundred broilers last year and had a 'butchering party" – invited friends, rented a plucker, set up an assembly line under the trees, and got them all processed in an afternoon. People who helped got dressed chickens in return.
Rabbits take up very little space and there’s a lot of meat on a rabbit. Easier to skin a rabbit than pluck a chicken in my experience anyway.
The concept of a centralized industrial meat supply system for an entire nation is not the only one that works.
Goodness, no. It’s best on the bone, only a touch of salt, fresh and bloody red rare.
“The closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat!” Take my word for it.
Around here, at least, the cut-wrap-and-freeze charge is per pound; nothing to do with what cuts you order.
I suspect it would be at least as much work for the butcher to remove all the meat from the bones and grind it all as it would be to cut the animal more normally. Probably more work.
– The price is going to vary by area, by the particular farm you purchase from, and by the size of the steer; at least around here, you pay by pound, usually for hanging weight. (Hanging weight, live weight, and dressed weight are three different things. Don’t freak out if you got charged by hanging weight when what you actually bring home weighs less.)
Some farms will sell by the quarter, which will be easier to fit in the freezer, though you’ll still need a chunk of freezer space. And, unless they’ll sell a mixed quarter (some places will), you’ll have to decide whether you want forequarter or hindquarter, which supply different cuts.
This is a pretty cool video showing what you get from a side of beef and how it’s all cut.
A joke, of course, but it does bring up a point worth remembering. Many butchers will not do their own slaughtering. If you’re buying a live animal, you need to figure in the slaughter as a separate step in your costs and transportation plans.
[quote=“Telemark, post:28, topic:853803”]
This is a pretty cool video showing what you get from a side of beef and how it’s all cut.
[/QUOTE] Nice vid-I hadn't heard the term "oyster steak" in years.If this all drags on long enough, we’ll see more shift into local production and distribution, which is all to the good I think.
I’m not close enough to any of you to go in on a steer, I don’t think. If anyone in the Bay Area is interested, please reach out.
I think it’s more likely the large slaughterhouses will space out their employees so they can’t infect each other.
I thought this would be about how you could brew up your own impossible burger using only ingredients found around the house/pantry.
I’m waiting on Impossible Pepperoni myself.
Eric Trump is looking around nervously like a character in a survival horror movie.
Stranger
Yep, my point exactly. Butchers usually only butcher.
A very good friend of mine has some sheep. When it’s time to slaughter lambs, I give him a hand. He actually has a hard time killing the cute little lambs.
Some people want a lamb ready to put on a spit. Those we kill, gut, skin, rinse, then hang in the cooler. A research scientist at the University of Pittsburgh buys lamb hearts, with specific parameters involving the length of vessels left on the organ. The meat is waste, but I end up eating it. We turn the carcass into legs, chops, and lots of roasts.
A sharp knife and a bandsaw make the work easier.
A few years back I saved the scraps and bones, then brought them home. We had three big stock pots going on the stove. It took two days to cook and de-fat the broth, which we then cooled and put into heavy duty zip lock bags that we laid flat in the freezer.
Maybe that depends on where you are; or maybe the issue is that most butchers aren’t also slaughterhouses, which is true. However, at least around here, small scale slaughterhouses are also butchers; and, if you buy a live animal or a share in one from a farmer, that’s the kind of slaughterhouse the farmer is going to be using. So no, you don’t have to move the carcass from one facility to another in order to get it cut. While the slaughterhouse will let you take the side(s) or quarter home to cut up yourself if you want, you can instead choose to have them cut and wrap it for you, and most will also freeze it – most home freezers aren’t able to freeze that much meat at once without taking a long time at it, which can reduce quality.
Generally the slaughterhouse bill will show a separate slaughter free (per animal) and a cut-wrap-and-freeze fee (per pound.) The farmer will probably be paid separately, usually by pound, figured usually as hanging weight (cut weight will be less, live weight is more.)
[quote=“Telemark, post:28, topic:853803”]
This is a pretty cool video showing what you get from a side of beef and how it’s all cut.
[/QUOTE] That is a very good video. It's very satisfying to see and hear someone passionate about what they do. That he's very good at it is even better. I could sure go for some beef ribs right now.We went in on part of a cow once- we knew somebody who knew somebody, so we gave it a try. A couple things I remember-we got a lot of wierd cuts of meat I had never heard of, like “blade roast”. And a LOT of hamburger. The cow ain’t all t-bones and ribeyes. Also it was not as cheap as we had thought- we were quoted a price for “X” lbs. of meat but when we actually weighed the packaged up meat it weighted a good bit less than what we were told. Maybe the poundage quoted was before butchering and cleaning.
I have to say though, flavor-wise it was the tastiest beef we ever ate. I guess naturally raised, grass-fed beef really makes a difference.
I’ve bought or gone in on 4 or 5 steer either as a whole, a half or a quarter. Unless you have the land/grass/water to raise them or a cheap source of hay it just never seems worth it. You’re better off buying the bulk packages of vacuum sealed meat from a restaurant supply “Cash and Carry” place. I recommend starting with a top round and cutting it into London broils. It’s the easiest, without a lot of odd cuts or scrap. Then learn how to break down a sirloin, it’s harder as there is a variety of steaks, roasts, and stew meat/burger/scrap.
Both top rounds and sirloins can be had in the big packages for cheaper than your local grocery store sells 80/20 burger and you’re not stuck with a bunch or heart, liver, tongue, 24 bone roasts, soup bones and missing a few rib steaks.
I enjoyed the video but goodness, there’s a lot of work that goes into taking apart a cow! This is why I’m very happy to pay someone else to do all that work.