Has anyone here purchased a side of or a quarter beef from the source before? If so, I’m looking for some tips. How did you find the ranch/farm you ended up using? What was the price range per pound of slaughtered beef? Processing costs? Options on the cuts (i.e. more stew, less ground)? Organ meat? Etc. Etc.
This is one of the cost saving/ better tasting food options I’m exploring. I know it’s a lot of meat. Figure about two hundred pounds or so. I have the freezer space and enough mouths to feed. So, I’m not concerned with the bulk. I’m more concerned with nuts and bolts of making a good purchase with my cash. Any good advice?
BTW. Did a search and ended up with too many hits. If there is an old thread that answers these questions mods feel free to point at it and shut this one down.
I bought a half a side of beef. No complaints about the taste or quality but I ended up with too much ground beef. I usually buy Laura’s Lean 93% so I didn’t care for it.
Price per pound wasn’t significantly better than what I pay for beef on sale.
My parents did this a couple of times when I was a growing little meat vacuum.
The only caveat I can throw in is to buy it directly, on your own. At one point, my parents went in with some ‘friends of friends’ who were buying a whole cow, with the expectation that we were getting a side. Instead, we got roughly half the meat, with almost none of the good cuts. They had kept all that stuff for themselves. Yet they still expected my parents to pay half. Did not work out well in the end.
My relatives farmed, and sometimes cattle would be slaughtered and relatives would buy a quarter or half of the beef. I know one thing that’s important, you can get stuck with lots of terrible meat. Remember that when you buy the meat. Sometimes small meat processors will sell you meat by the quarter. You had better know the processor is honest or you can end up with no good cuts of meat they having sold those cuts to people and given you lesser quality cuts they had or they just short you on all cuts of meat. They will sometimes batch all the meat too, so multiple cattle get mixed together and your super prime steer beef is mixed with the old 10 year old dried up milker somebody else brought in. Don’t bring in your cattle or hogs for processing during the insanely busy deer processing season either. They have to process hundreds of deer that can’t wait.
I decided not paying for the meat cuts I don’t want and buying the good meat I do at the store works out better.
If you can find a local butcher store, you might be well served checking there. There’s an excellent one here in my Minneapolis suburb, and they have a few package deal specials noted up on their walls. I don’t think it’s a quarter or side or anything like that, but they have a $100 special and (I think) a $50 special, each listing exactly what’s included in the special - 10# ground beef, 5 t-bones, and so on. I haven’t really checked to see how much you’ll save that way, but I’ve often thought that it looked like a convenient way to fill a freezer. With the additional bonuses of knowing a) the meat was high quality (seriously, they’re great) and b) exactly what cuts and such I’m getting.
They might even work with you to put together something more customized.