Butchering at home

[Digby49]

I have an Angus Heifer that I would like to Butcher myself ,is there a way to age the meat at home without a cold storage room I live in Virginia were it never stays cold for more than a few days ?

[topside1]

Lots of coolers and ice...

[Ronney]

In that case Digby I would take it to the butcher rather than run the risk of loseing the lot.

We don't even contemplate doing our own cattle beasts and one of the reasons is that even in the middle of winter it doesn't stay consistently cold enough for long enough to allow it to hang for the 10-12 days that we prefer.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[RosewoodfarmVA]

I'm in southern central Virginia and yes, it does get cold enough here to hang meat. We butcher all our own cows, did two last week. We use a tractor with a front end loader to hoist the cow to skin and gut. If you want to hang it, make sure you can do so without every hungry critter being able to get to it. The ideal temp is below freezing at night and above during the day. This past week here would have been good. If at any point it gets above 45 or so at daytime high you need to go ahead and butcher then. Usually we here in VA get 6 or 8 good weeklong periods of ideal hanging weather. Keep an eye on the weather websites and when they are predicting mid20s/high30s low and high temp., for several days, it would be a good time to do it.

To answer your question YES it can be done in Virginia with a keen eye on the weather. You may not get 8 or 10 days hanging, but 4-5 should be enough to do it. We butcher ours at 2 years old, and usually don't hang it....it's just easier to do it all in one day. Our meat always comes out good and tender. We do have other friends who hang theirs, but to be honest I don't notice any difference in the meat. We start about 7:30 and are finished by 3 pm. We did buy a professional grinder so that part is done at home as well. Good luck!

[montysky]

Originally Posted by Digby49

I have an Angus Heifer that I would like to Butcher myself ,is there a way to age the meat at home without a cold storage room I live in Virginia were it never stays cold for more than a few days ?

Digby49, do you plan on dry aging or wet aging? Dry aging you would need to keep it between 39-33 and dry for 1 week to about 8 weeks. I age for 21 to 28 days - black angus or black baldies. wet aging after about 11 days the benefit of aging is about done. Dry aging you will lose weight wet you don't

so to answer your question if you can keep the large sections of beef together and below 39 degrees then you can dry age.

if not wet aging can be done at final cut size. after hanging 24 hours.

Without a cooler room or walk-in I would "wet" age, for 2 weeks then freeze.

[Kazahleenah]

Rosewood.... how many people are working on the cows you butcher?

Kaza

[RosewoodfarmVA]

3 people: myself, aged mid 20s, and both my parents, aged mid 50s. I shoot him in the forehead with 30-30, then chain his back legs to the tractor lift. I do the skinning and gutting (dad helps where he can), then I cut the meat off the carcass and give to either mom (who finishes cutting and wraps it/bags it) or dad, who runs the grinder.

I borrow a neighbor's tractor as ours doesn't have a front end loader. I usually start off with a cup of coffee then go get the tractor about 7:30, back by 8 and shoot and hang up, 8:30 start skinning and then gut him, by 10:00 we are cutting meat off him.

I start by removing the head while skinning, then after gutting cut off the whole neck roast, and front legs, which mom cuts up the meat into roasts or meat for the grind bucket. We keep several buckets handy, one for grind meat, one for roasts and steak meat, one for small pieces for "chinese" food. This way no one has to wait for another to catch up, just put it in their bucket.

Then I cut the backstrap off (give to mom) then use pruning clippers to cut the ribs into baggable sized lengths. After the backbone/ribs are stripped clean of meat, I lower the lift a little and cut up the hind legs. This is where we get most of our steaks and roasts from, and I cut it up straight off the leg while mom is finishing bagging the ribs and dad is grinding the front leg/scrap meat. Usually by the time I'm finished cutting up the hind legs, mom has caught up and bags what I've cut and dad grinds what I've put in his bucket. I haul the bones to the woods and return the tractor. We're usually done by about 3:00 or so.

We're all converted city-folk with no farming experience as of 6 years ago.
We had an old-timer come and teach me the first few times we did it, and now occasionally we have other homeschooler/homesteader folks come and watch us. As far as I know we are the only ones left in our area that still butcher their cows, but many still do their own deer and a few do hogs. We really enjoy doing it, and also are glad to have our own beef and know where it came from! We usually butcher 2-4 a winter. Did 2 last week, and have two more to do sometime this winter. Ours usually give us about 200-300 pounds of meat. They are bottle fed bull calves, cheap, and we don't use any grain, so they are very inexpensive to raise. I figure I have about $200 in each, for their purchase, powder milk ($$$), and including any calf death losses spread to the other living ones. I am hoping that more people will start doing their own butchering. Not only can you control the environment, and freedom from contamination, but it's very simple and costs less than hiring it out. We did pay $700 for the grinder, but it's a commercial solid metal one that should last forever (and also weighs 75#!!). I am still amazed at how many people will take so much care raising a healthy cow, then haul it off to the butcher to be exposed to all those other cows' bacteria and cut and wrapped by someone who may not be as careful as they should. If were talking about healthy eating folks, we should do the whole project, start to finish!

[michiganfarmer]

Originally Posted by Ronney

In that case Digby I would take it to the butcher rather than run the risk of loseing the lot.

We don't even contemplate doing our own cattle beasts and one of the reasons is that even in the middle of winter it doesn't stay consistently cold enough for long enough to allow it to hang for the 10-12 days that we prefer.

Cheers,
Ronnie

you are near the south pole.

It doesnt get cold?

[Ronney]

Not where I live Max, which is near the top of the North Island. We might have 3 or 4 nights through the course of the winter where it drops to 30F but the average night temperature is between 45-50F and daytime up to 65F.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[Philip]

Ronney, we're the same - even in Nelson I only hang sheep overnight in winter as its to warm during the day (average 12 C in winter) so theres no way a beast would last 4 - 5 days

Unless the daytime temperature doesn't rise above 4 or 5 degrees Celsius I wouldn't risk losing a whole beast