"How much can I expect to take home from my share of beef?"
This is a question we get weekly. There are plenty of online resources to answer this question, and lots of differing opinions. We can't answer for other facilities, but the information below explains our process and what you can expect when working with The Fatted Calf. We understand that everyone who purchases a share of beef is concerned with the amount meat they will actually take home. It’s a big investment and we do everything we can to make certain that our customers get the best yield possible.
Let's assume an average sized two year old steer weights about 1,000 pounds; that weight is referred to as the "live weight". To keep things simple, we are going to use that 1,000 pounds for our math. Once the animal is slaughtered, that number will drastically change. The skin, head, non-edible organs, hooves, and a lot of liquid is removed and the carcass is split down the middle and weighed giving the butcher the "hanging" or "carcass" weight. This weight is approximately 60% of live weight or 600 pounds. The two "sides" are then hung in a cooler for 14-16 days to age. This improves the tenderness and enhances the flavor but also reduces the weight due to evaporation. The actual hanging weight of the carcass at the time it is processed can be as much as 15-20 pounds lighter.
Just like people though, every animal is different. Take my sister and I. We process food differently. I can look at a brownie and gain 4 pounds of pure fat while she can eat the whole pan and not gain an ounce of fat. Animals are the same way. We can feed out sibling animals with the exact same feed rations for the exact same amount of time and have them weigh out within one or two pounds of each other on the rail. However, one ends up with fantastic muscle and beautiful marbling while the next one might have a large amount of fat that all stayed on the outside of the muscle and had very little internal marbling. That outside fat gets cut off and discarded. This makes the take home yield very different for the two animals.
Steer to Carcass
In order to change a 1,000-pound beef animal into edible meat product, butchers first have to convert it into a carcass by removing the hide, head and internal organs. On average, only 60 percent of the animal’s original weight remains, resulting in an average carcass weight of about 600 pounds. The meat industry calls this percentage the “dressing percentage,” which varies between animals due to many factors including hide thickness, presence of horns, whether the animal was grass- or grain-finished, etc. The items removed in the conversion of an animal to a carcass are often not desired by consumers here in the United States, but you can request to have organ meats such as tongue, tail, heart and liver wrapped and saved for you. We need to know if you want these organs kept at the time of slaughter.
Carcass to Cuts
After the carcass is properly aged, (14-16 days) it is ready to be broken down into retail cuts. On average, 20-25 percent of each carcass is inedible bone, fat and connective tissue. Once the carcass is fabricated and inedible objects are removed, a whole carcass will yield about 300+ pounds of edible beef product.
Each beef carcass contains more than 200 muscles. Some of these muscles will become mouthwatering steaks such as Filet Mignon, while others may have little value as a steak or a roast and are directly converted into ground beef products. Ground beef is also made up of bits and pieces that are trimmed from steaks and roasts during the preparation process. Approximately 40-50 percent of edible beef products will be converted into ground beef. The remainder is cut into your favorite steaks and roasts as specified.
So, in general, a live beef weighing 1,000 pounds would initially weigh around 600 pounds on the rail or hanging weight. Boxed weight then, will be about 50% of the hanging weight once all the fat, bones, and waste is removed and you take into consideration the amount of evaporation that took place.
Here is an example. Say you got a quarter beef. Your hanging weight is 175 pounds. Half of that is 87.5 pounds. That 87.5 pounds is roughly what you could expect to take home. Now divide that in half and you will see that about 44 pounds of that take home weight will be in hamburger. That is if you had all the standard cuts. If you did not choose to take the roasts or brisket or some other cuts, your hamburger yield could be more and your packaged cuts would be less.
While the internet can be useful for information, it does not always give an accurate representation for yield on a beef carcass. Many places will tell you that you should expect 60% of the carcass weight as take home weight. Unfortunately, that is not accurate most of the time. There are a lot of factors that come into play when processing a beef.
Are your cuts bone-in or boneless? This will dramatically affect the overall yield in pounds but does NOT affect the actual amount of meat you receive. The more boneless cuts you have, the lower the yield in pounds but not meat.
How much fat is left on the meat? Some animals have an extreme amount of outside fat that has to be removed. The yield will vary based on how much surface fat the processor leaves on the cuts. We prefer a grocery store cut, meaning everything has been closely trimmed so we can take it straight from the package to the pan. You have a choice of lean, standard or fatty cuts on our cutting preferences sheet.
How lean is your ground beef? If you like lean ground beef, your yield will be less than if the grind is made with a higher fat content. We like 85/15 - 80/20, which gives a great flavor, enough fat to not stick to the pan, but does not allow the meat to swim in grease.
Are you taking any organ meat? The hanging weight is based on the entire carcass weight, which includes edible organs. If you don't want the heart, liver, tongue, or tail, that could affect the take-home weight by as much as 20-30 pounds.
All these could have an impact on how much meat you actually take home. The 60% that the internet says you should get includes you taking all bone-in cuts, all the ribs, all the soup and dog bones, no fat trimmed, and taking all organ meat (liver, heart, tail, tongue).
Please know that we do make every effort to pull as much meat off the bone for your burger as we possibly can. If you choose to not keep the ribs, we cut between every rib to pull out all meat possible without adding too much fat to your burger. If the ribs are extremely fat (over 50%), we will not do that and risk making your burger over 20% fat unless, of course, you ask for it.
When we process a beef, we pull out one half at a time. Period. When it is packaged, cuts are counted, documented, labeled with your name, weighed on certified inspected scales, and put into chill trays to go into the freezer. We don’t put it into bags or boxes until you come to pick it up and you watch us unload each tray into containers to take home. We don’t have any of your meat on any other cart, it just doesn’t work that way at our facility. We don’t have random bags of meat lying around in our freezer. If you think you were short, I can’t just say, “Oh, let me look and see if I can find some more in the freezer.” All of your meat is kept together from the time it hangs on the rail until it goes out the door.
If you purchased a quarter beef share from someone, it is treated the same way, but remember, you are receiving a half of a half. It is the only instance in which more than one person’s beef will be on the table at the same time. In order to be accurate, we actually label tubs with each person’s name on them and place their cuts into those tubs so they are kept separate from each other. To be as fair as possible, we then weigh each tub and if one weighs less (because they did not want roast or cube steaks, or some other cut), we then even that weight out with hamburger. Then, we divide the remaining burger between the two so that each person receives an equal portion of the half.
We want our customers to feel confident that they are getting every pound of take home meat possible and welcome you, any time, to come sit through a processing session to see exactly how we operate. We are transparent in our policy and how we process and are happy to answer your questions. We know that purchasing farmer direct is a big investment and we do everything possible to get you the most beef for your buck.
www.thefattedcalfllc.com
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