How to cut the carcass?

[steff bugielski]

I was hoping to have my friend the buthcher come and help me cut up our cow. It has been hanging at about 38 degrees for one week now and he still can't get here. So I might have to do it myself. We just did a hog but not much in the way of different steaks involved. Is there a site that tells you just where to cut to get the correct steaks. I really want T-bone, sirlion, chuck, porterhouse and skirt steaks.

[francismilker]

You might try this link. It's pretty basic, but will give you a general idea.
I might say though however, cutting up and wrapping a carcass without the experience or having not seen it done up close in the past could result in some lost beef. Good luck to you and have plenty of table space to work on.
http://hubpages.com/hub/Diagram-of-H...her-a-Beef-Cow

[agmantoo]

steff,
If you cannot find a guide may I suggest this? Lay the section of carcass on the work table that you will be cutting. For example on the hindquarter look through the thin membrane that covers the outer hide side and you should see each muscle outlined by a thin white membrane. Use your knife and separate the muscles into individual pieces. It is these individual muscles the comprise the various cuts. You may not know the name given to the muscles/cuts but you will have the pieces to where they can be further reduced by cutting each one crosswise of the grain. The key is to always cut in such a manner that the end results are a slice of meat with the shortest length of fiber. All short, nondescript, odd, mistake cuts are put into burger so none is wasted. Do not save the gristle and tendon like scraps. Those are for the dog, etc.

[randiliana]

If you want to wait for your friend, we hang ours for 15-17 days.

[Ken Scharabok]

If you have a smaller grocery store (Mom and Pop) in your area which still has their own butcher shop try this. Ask them, if you brought in the carcass one-quarter at a time, what they would charge you to cut and package it. You specify what you want individually packaged (and in what quantity) and the rest goes to burger.

Best book I've seen on this is Home Butchering and Meat Preservation by Geeta Dardick. You might find it on line and ask for expedited shipping.

Do you already have a meat saw and suitable sharp butchering knives? What about a meat grinder capable of handling a goodly volume?

[picklespickles]

agmantoo has good tips. there is sort of a sense to it once you get started. even if you mess it up a little and have cuts that are, shall we say, original, it will still TASTE really good. if it doesn't look like storebought the first time, well, i'd say you're still ahead of the game as far as the quality of homegrown meat.

[Farmerwilly2]

I don't spect I'd pay a couple hundred to have it cut and wrapped any more than I'd pay to have someone chew it for me. You can only read so much before you need to get on to the doin of a thing. Can't never did squat.

Here's a place to start:

YouTube

[mrpink]

you can order a dvd from http://www.askthemeatman.com/beef.htm on how to process a beef.

greg

[steff bugielski]

Well we did the hog a few weeks ago and a steer a few years a go . The only problem with the steer was no bone saw so every thing was deboned. I want steak with bones. It is the only way I can recognize which is which.
So two weeks is ok? She has been hanging for about 9 days now. The temp in the barn is hovering around 38 degrees.
I would love to have my friend the butcher help or at least show me where to cut.

[randiliana]

2 weeks should be OK, as long as the temps are staying cool. Might be an idea to do a google search to find out more.

[steff bugielski]

half done, half to go.
We did the front half by ourselves yesterday, hoping butcher can come out today. We really did not know where to cut but I think the better cuts are in the back half.

[agmantoo]

Good for you Steff. Yes the better cuts will be in the back and hind quarters. Very few if any animals have the front legs as the best cuts so you got your introduction to meat cutting in the correct place. As I stated previously, take each muscle apart to itself and cut across the grain. You will be fine.

[Farmerwilly2]

I'll second the good for you. I always told my students that 'your hands will remember what your mind soon forgets'. I also believe the more you do, the more you practice, the better you will get.

[steff bugielski]

Only one more quarter to go. After all was wrapped yesterday I decided" It might not look right, but it will taste right."
And it sure did. We had some fresh ground burgers for lunch and a hunk a something for dinner. Wow was it good. I must now eat lots of fruit and veggies, I can hear my colon yelling at me already.
Best part is I have an other round of all those good pieces to go today.
When we got this calf it was July, should have been Jan. But the price was right. Should have butchered in Nov of last year but she was still pretty small. Should have butchered in spring but now all that nice grass, should have butchered in Nov but never worked out. I figured we spent $1500 to get her to this point. I figured she weighed about 850lbs. I should end up with 300+lbs of meat, I did not save any organs but liver. So thats about $4lbs for organic free range grass fed beef. Not bad.
I was annoyed that once again I would not have recognizable cuts of meat. But you guys talked me through and I might just get another next Jan.
I will not winter it over though.
thanks again, wish I could share .

[Ken Scharabok]

Steff: We will all be at your house on Saturday afternoon, 1PM for a grill out. I like mine cooked medium rare. Should we all bring a side dish to share?

While $4 a pound average may seem high according to the BLS, the average price of supermarket beef (non-cooked, excludiing veal) was $3.20 in April 2008.

http://www.retail-lmic.info/CD/Stand.../BLSTable1.htm

However, I am unable to tell if it is weighted towards the amount of different cuts from a carcass. Perhaps that is the lower ($3.02) BLS computed price.

And, I note, prices were from regular supermarkets, not health food stores.

The alternative to raising a single animal from calf to slaughter it to go to almost any livestock auction and purchase animals (heavy feeders or young bul) at or near slaughter age. Yes, you don't know where they have been, but I suspect probably 99% have been pasture raised with perhaps a worming and multi-way vaccine.

On young bulls, at least the livestock barn in Dickson, TN will work (de-horn, castrate, vaccinate as requested) the animals purchased the day after the sale for a very reasonable fee. You have a young bull castrated and put him on pasture and grain for 60 days and I suspect you are going to have a right tasty critter.

When I was in Croatia in 2001 I got to visit a 6,000 head capacity indoor cattle feed lot. Predominately intact bulls. I asked about castration and was told as long as the bull was slaughtered before 18 months of age they were fine. Feed was dry corn silage (cut after the ears hardened), spent beer malt and a dash of salt. If they have it available some hay might be added to the mixing wagon. I was extremely impressed with the operation.

Need to feed a large family cheaply? Slaughter cows locally sell for $.30-.40 pound. These are cows which fell out of someone's system for one reason or another. Perhaps they were unable to raise a calf due to overly large tits, went barren or were culled due to simply age. I once culled a nice cow (good calf producer) because when it came time to head they into the corral she would head in the opposite direction, taking the rest of the herd with her. Otherwise she was a nice, gentle critter - just don't like going into the corral. Simply became too much hassle to deal with. I would, however, avoid dairy cattle.