Why I’m Buying a Side of Beef

The short answer is that I’m addicted to high eating quality beef and I’m guessing that consumer price inflation will get even worse before it eventually begins getting better.

Folks who regularly read my blog posts know that I often advocate buying retail market grade, bargain priced meat to perform value-added home processing with; to produce freezer stored convenience items. Today, that remains prudent practice with market hog shoulder butts; that were just recently offered locally here for $1 per pound. Unfortunately, my extended family and I are tiring of eating pork all the time. And, I am not a fowl person of any consequence. Most fish is OK for us, but inflation has also made it more cost prohibitive. I recently tried eating regular retail ground beef that was offered at a somewhat appealing sales price. We did not like its strong cull cow flavor/odor. I guess that decades of eating grind from young grain-finished cattle has transformed us into “beef snobs” of sorts. My go-to cut for a home beef further processing sub-primal was boneless Choice chuck, but that’s no longer the case at the current 7 to 8 dollars a pound price range. Some other food writers and myself just might have done “too good of a job” promoting underutilized beef chucks. Or, maybe it’s Bidenflation driven. Yet, in the not too distant pre-Biden past the same dang thing started happened with ole tough brisket. Whatever the reason, we are definitely experiencing a major shift in beef eating fundamentals. Ground chuck ordinarily has an 80% lean designation and is substantially less expensive than boneless Choice chuck roast. That fact makes sense because mainstream ground chuck is formulated using a culled dairy and/or culled beef brood cow chuck component. Further, ground chuck only has to come 50% from the chuck region of beef carcasses. Chuck origin fat trimmings count as being beef chuck. And indeed, chuck fat trim can be a good component for enhancing grain-finished beef flavor in ground beef.

So, what’s a limited financial means, expensive tastes, beef eater like me to do during inflationary times? Job one was finding a good, reasonably priced, high quality, grain-finished beef producer. Fortunately I have known a dandy commercial (mainstream) grain & beef farmer since back around 1978. So, job one was easily accomplished. Those widespread grass-finished and long dry-aging trends will cost you a lot more money per edible pound; plus will likely provide lower eating enjoyment compared to mainstream retail market beef. Give the big food industry players some credit for knowing what consumer will repeatedly buy. If you really want to long dry-age something, have the whole loin (rib section included) hang longer in the walk-in cooler; while the roasts and ground beef get into freezer storage within 10 to 14 days from the kill date (if your regional custom processor is willing to do such a thing). To learn more about the two fads mentioned above (Click Here) and then (Click Here). After gaining sound wisdom about the optimal means of market cattle production one has to decide on how much beef they should buy and how it should best be fabricated to fit in with their personal preferences. We decided to go with a full side because diving up the natural variation cuts from a side of beef can never be exact. And, with our 3 married children (all which own home freezers) and 9 grandchildren, an estimated 250 pounds of raw beef products will most likely get eaten within a year. By being double wrapped or vacuum packed and held below 0F, high quality should hold until it all gets consumed. None of it will have any salt added to it; which would cause increased fat oxidation during freezer storage. Other than small custom meat processing plants, many of the few remaining neighborhood butcher shops will sell sides and quarters of beef. Unlike at most custom plants, one can choose either a fore or hind quarter at butcher shops. Hind quarters are slightly higher priced because they contain a higher percentage of high priced beef cuts. When just out of High School in 1975 I worked at a butcher shop for 6 months prior to starting college. We would process custom ordered sides or quarters, out of refrigeration and in-be-tween waiting on customers. If the steaks or roasts in the retail meat case were starting to darken, we would take near equal weights of like cuts and fresh-cut freezer beef then switch them out. After cuts were frozen no one could tell that they had been a little shop worn. Therefore, I would give a small trust advantage to custom processors that don’t have a retail case. Most places won’t do anything wrong because, like myself, ex-employees talk. Commercial “swinging” beef comes to butcher shops in quarter carcasses and has commonly been USDA graded because Official Grading is a proven marketing tool. One time after receiving a tip, I busted a small wholesale meat distributor who was selling ungraded beef sides to butcher shops and misrepresenting them as USDA Choice on sales invoices. Reviewed carcasses were not grade rolled either. The only thing that came out of it was that the meat wholesaler in question employed the USDA Grading Service for a few years afterwards (yes, Grading is voluntary). Custom freezer beef processing does not work in the vast majority of high volume/low markup chain grocery stores. Like smaller shops, big stores to seem to follow laws/rules closely; probably because they cannot afford any bad press.

The publicly offered deal I found is $3.25 per hot carcass hanging weight pound plus approximately 80 cents per hot hanging weight pound for processing & packaging. There’s a substantial amount of combined cooler shrinkage, freshening trim, fat trimmings and bone loss. Notably, up to 5% cooler shrinkage (dehydration) is lost from the hot carcass weight during a customary 14 day dry-aging period. Dry-aging periods increase meat plant facility usage. That’s why the big plants chill 30 hours, grade, fabricated sub-primal cuts, vacuum package, box and ship. Such beef “wet-ages” during distribution and marketing time frames. Bone-in cuts, boneless cuts and grind ended up costing a combined total of $6.35 per pound. The price per pound would have been lower if we had not opted for so much of the side being made into premium grind and packaged into 1 pound chubs. While that figure may sound high priced for wholesale grind, it is after all fattened young cattle grind. And, the retail grade equivalent steaks & roast are at that same price. As indicated earlier in this post, even chuck roasts are currently higher than $6.35 per pound, and retail grade “middle meat” steaks are way up there. Some major sections of the round are hard to do much worthwhile with as prepared cuts. Grinding round in with some Choice fat trim makes a great, versatile product; while also increasing the overall yielded poundage of eaten beef product. Just over half the weight that we put in the freeze was grind. After crediting for steaks and roasts, we saved well over a dollar per pound on premium grid (compared to retail prices for hard to find, comparable product) and we now have plenty of it conveniently on hand.

I once thought that I would never buy another side of beef. But times have changed and it now makes financial sense to save money while eating good. Further, by boycotting mainstream grocery and restaurant beef we are doing a little something to help lower grocery & restaurant perishable beef demand/prices. The Government subsidizes beef prices by buying-up coarse cull cow grind and donating it to schools and some other food help programs. Such grind is normally enhanced with some market beef fat trimmings. Do you feel that those subsidies and resulting donations should stop during times of record high beef prices? Schools across the Nation plan their food budgets based on free Federal Government food. Beef is out of P.C. favor (as green-think goes). So this Government “helping” helps keep its price high; which should encourage more financially strapped paying consumers to curtail eating it. The mainstream North American meat industry is configured on a high volume – low markup business plan. Lower volume of meat product is why lamb, goat (chevon), rabbit and bison has already been very expensive in the U.S.A. Cattle, sheep, goats, rabbits and bison are all greenhouse emitting ruminant species. So, if beef volume drops significantly its non-P.C. price could remain high even if more competent political leadership gets most of other price inflation under control. At first glance sky-high prices might appear to be beneficial to beef producers, but it would actually be a downward volume spiral for that expensive, perishable protein.

Our fresh beef fabrication list:

Will take tongue and heart. {They both could legally go in with ground beef, but are frozen shortly after slaughter so that they don’t spoil during a custom beef standard of 10 to 14 days of dry carcass aging}

Do not want liver or suet. {Suet is very saturated/hard fat and should not go into ground beef}

Meaty cross-cut fore shank. {Do not want meatless marrow bones]

Thick neck meat into grind {Per usual}

Will take some moderately meaty neck bones sawed approximately an inch and a quarter thick.

One and a half inch thick chuck roasts.

One and a half inch thick English roasts.

Arm/clod is to go in with full-carcass, 75 to 80% lean, one pound bulk packed grind.

Whole brisket.

Meaty short ribs only.

Navel into grind. {Can be used to make traditional pastrami; looks like beef bacon}

Grind skirt (thin diaphragm muscle) & hanging tender (thick muscle dorsal attachment of the diaphragm). Good for fajita meat.

Bone-in sirloin steaks one inch thick, 1 per package.

Flank steak whole.

Grind sirloin/ball tip.

Eye of round packaged whole. {Will use to make refrigerator stored beef jerky}

Grind top, bottom and heel of round.

Please try to use mainly chuck fat trimmings to bring grind to the 75 to 80% lean range. If needed, use steak fat trimmings ahead of using flank area fat.

During trying times, when things zig, one has to try and zag. For example: When Covid hit I went to a foodservice supply store and purchased all the competitively priced meat I wanted; because restaurants had been ordered to close. If things continue to go bad, one day we might even be glad to eat wild ruminant, destructive deer.

Received, actual beef attributes:

Young/tender, grain-finished side in the high Choice to low Prime marbling degree range.

Carcass had good fat cover; so there was little loss from freshening exposed lean after dry-aging for 11 days.

Rib-eye area was in the 12 to 13 square inch range. That’s just the right size for 1″ thick steak portion control. 1″ thick steaks facilitate grilling to medium-rare doneness.

The premium ground beef contains an optimal percentage of grain-finished fat.

There were no carcass defects (dark-cutter, muscle blood splash, muscle callus, abscess etc.).

Everything was vacuum packaged, cut name labeled and quick frozen to below 0F.

Overall, everything is optimal for many enjoyable beef eating experiences. And, there is something to be said for knowing what you have a convenient supply of.

However, if you don’t have the time and/or desire to cook, you best continue driving to fast-food outlets etc. for your nutrition.

Addendum:

When I grind my own Choice ground beef I start with boneless chuck rolls, remove any heavy connective tissue and grind it once through a 3/16″ hole size grinder plate. When buying a side of beef we took the chuck as roasts. We also took the English roasts located directly below the chuck roasts. The arm/clod and the majority of the round was ground. Both the arm and round contain large lean muscles (few muscle seams containing fat and connective tissue) . Grinding high quality lean beef once through a 3/16″ plate keeps it from becoming somewhat mushy. Moderately larger fat particles also enhance desirable cooked product texture. Taking cross-cut shank meat for soup making keeps some of the stringiest meat out of the grind. Areas of heavy connective tissue like the abdominal tunic, bottom round silver-skin and body cavity lining are routinely removed; so they do not end up in grind. The stringy heel of round and sirloin tip (quadriceps) muscle bundles still do end up in grind. So grinding clean, retail grade beef once through a 3/16″ plate will yield some particles of stringy beef that can get stuck between one’s teeth, but the other textual attributes of this grinding practice far outweigh objections to occasionally having to use a tooth pick.

Full-carcass cull cow meat has to go through a coarse, and then a fine grind in order to be acceptable. That is not the case with properly fabricated premium ground beef.