We have gone in with my mother-in-law on a side of beef every year for the last four or five. This year she didn’t want any, so we took the whole side; I just picked it up from the butcher last weekend.
In our case, the butcher pretty much knows what most people want, so when he calls us to ask “how do you want it?”, we pretty much just go along with what he suggests.
You got some ‘splainin’ to do.
I am actually the owner of a pig (Tilda Swinedon), the meat from whom will be mine when she’s ready to harvest in a few months. I paid the farmer when she bought her from her litter, have given her (the farmer) money for feed here and there over the past couple of months, and the farmer has a butcher on retainer. Farmer Shawnda thinks Tilda will be ready for harvest by October. Can’t wait. Mmmmmm, bacon.
One of my aspirations is to be a custom meat farmer where I raise hogs and cattle and people can come out and pick one and we have it butchered for them.
If anyone’s interested in the process, here’s a video of a butcher cutting up a side of beef.
A friend mentioned they got 1/4 of a cow (actually split 1/2 with a neighbor) – I joked “unfortunately, you got the bottom quarter” (hmm, hooves) 
Brian
That was a fascinating video! Thanks!
Not quite my house; we used the old family farm where the cow basically was but -------- yeah. Pretty much.
It was sort of like this and be warned it is graphic:
Our reason was that we know full-on processors and even they will admit that with various inspection holds/processes/et al they cannot say 100% for sure that the meat we got was always 100% the animal delivered. In an industrial facility sometimes things happen. And every now and then we want to be 100% sure. So ----------- we know a guy with a rig something like this who does house/barn calls.
Thanks for all of the information. After watching Little Nemo’s video I got a little apprehensive about the amount that we’re getting. I was told that we’re splitting a quarter with the neighbors. I think we’ll be able to handle that. I don’t know what the price is yet or when this is actually occurring, but it’s not my project so I’m not too worried about it.
Also, I found this previous thread.
If you lived out in the country one could buy say a new baby pig for about $10 or so in the spring then let it run around in a pen and feed it all your table scraps and such and then by about October you’d have 300 pounds of fresh pork. If you let it roam in an area of woods it will also feed on the weeds and such plus exercise will make the hams taste even better.
Hog manure also makes about the best (and free) fertilizer for your garden.
You don’t have to end up with a lot of ground beef which is pretty obvious when you consider that we’ve been cutting up cows for a lot longer than we’ve had grinders. The reason why Americans end up with so much ground beef is because the cuisine focuses on a few cuts of mainly off the bone, mainly tender cuts and so there isn’t a strong plan for the rest of the animal except to grind it. I haven’t done a cow before but I’ve butchered my own lambs and, with the right butchering, maybe only a 3 - 4 lbs of a 150 lb animal ends up in the form of stew meat/ground lamb instead of a steak or a roast. The key is you have to ignore “conventional” US cuts and instead focus on following the natural seams of the meat and pulling out whole muscles. Even in the toughest areas of the animal, there’s a lot of tender, delicious steaks that we normally don’t ever extract because it’s too labor intensive to do at scale.
American recipes are adapted for industrial meat cutting and industrial meat cutting is adapted for throughput and cost, not maximizing the use of the animal. If you’re opting out of the industrial process, there’s a lot more options you can consider from historical recipes or authentic recipes from other cultures that allow you to use a cow more interestingly.
Good points. I never thought of all that. A good personal butcher can make a big difference. Of course, you would have to pay them well.
This may be useful, an article from The Independent with a beef cuts chart and how to cook different parts.
Spanish cuts are similar. Prime cuts are the best steaks (boned or boneless) and roasts; seconds are also cut as steaks but are not so good; thirds are for stews, kebabs; ground beef and sausages are usually the bits and pieces from cutting up the other three.
Bon Appetit has an excellent video of a butcher breaking down an entire side of beef. Very informative if you want to know how beef is processed and the potential of each cut.
When is the last time you purchased weaned feeder pigs? The cheapest I’ve seen them selling for is around $150. And “let it roam in an area of woods”? What? It is difficult to maintain an electric fence around a wooded area. How are you keeping the pigs confined?
1/8th of a beef isn’t really very much. Unless you’re quite limited on freezer space, you should be fine.
We purchased a half cow about 3 years ago, and split it amongst 8 people.
The hardest part was trying to convince them to let us have the caul fat, tripe and tendon.
We were ultimately unsuccessful because whoever the farmer was using as a butcher wasn’t really set up to do special requests.
We did have quite a lot of ground beef, but we expected that. What we didn’t expect was the farmer reneging on our agreement and only giving us X pounds instead of the whole side (the cow apparently was bigger than he anticipated). If we ever do it again we will choose a different farmer and maybe have a signed contract.
I’m a little unclear on how this all works. How do you age the steaks, and turn the pigs into ham or bacon?
This was fascinating, thanks. A few times around Thanksgiving I’ve taken animals to get slaughtered and butchered-mainly chickens or turkeys-and the most fascinating part was (while standing in line) watching how fast they can process all the other animals, like pigs or goats. It really is an art.
There’s two kinds of aging; dry aging and wet aging. Both involve storing the meat at a low temperature for an extended period (usually two to four weeks). Enzymes in the meat will break down connective tissue and make the meat more tender.
To my understanding, dry aging is considered the better kind of aging. The meat is left exposed to the air while it ages. This allows a lot of the water in the meat to evaporate and makes the final cut much lighter in weight. This evaporation also concentrates the parts of the meat that contain the flavor. And in addition to the enzymes in the meat, fungi in the air will also work on the meat and help break down the connective tissue. These fungi will form a surface crust on the meat that will be trimmed off when the meat is ready to cook.
Wet aging is the more common process. The meat is placed in a vacuum-sealed bag while it ages. The enzymes will still break down the connective tissues but there will be minimum water loss and no fungi growth. Apparently connoisseurs feel the results aren’t as good but sellers prefer it because the final product weighs more due to the lack of water loss and need to trim off the crust.
There’s also a method for quick “aging”. With this method, the meat is not actually aged. Instead it’s covered in a coating of ground rice and fungus and stored for two or three days. This method simulates the effects of aging meat in a shorter time period.
You make bacon by taking a slab of skinned pork belly (you can substitute beef or lamb). You cure the meat by coating it in a mixture of salt and spices and storing it in a low temperature for a period from anywhere between three days to two weeks. Then rinse off the coating and store it for a couple more days. This curing draws a lot of the water out of the meat. When you’re done curing the meat, you can smoke the meat (this is optional but most people prefer the flavor of smoke bacon). You smoke the bacon by exposing it to a smoky smoldering fire for about two hours.
Making ham is a similar process using a different cut of meat; the ham, which is the upper portion of the pig’s rear leg. Because the meat is larger, it’s cured in a brine of water, salt, and spices rather than a dry rub. And it takes a longer period to smoke it, if you choose to do so.