Turkeyfoot Jr.
Well-Known Member
In order to not derail SpanishCasteAle's burger thread I took his suggestion and fired up a new thread on bulk beef buys.
For me it works like this. My brother works for a grain elevator and consequently has numerous farmer friends. One in particular raises beef cattle and whenever he's taking a couple steers to market he'll ask my brother if any of us are interested in getting some beef. Between my various siblings we usually end up splitting one steer. He usually goes to market twice a year and we'll split a 1/4 steer each time with one of my other brothers or buy a full 1/4 one time.
1/4 of a steer tends to give us 100-150lbs. of beef which I've found will fill the entire freezer of a standard refrigerator. I would only plan to use such a freezer if you have a spare one that is mostly empty and is used only rarely. Constantly opening and closing the freezer door isn't good for the meat.
The processor cuts the meat to our specifications. They have a list of all the various roast and steak cuts and you tell them how big to make the roasts and how thick to cut the steaks. If there's a particular roast or steak you don't want they'll toss that into what will be ground for hamburger. For the 1/4 we got here recently we ended up with 6-9 strip steaks, 4 tenderloins (filet mignon), 6 ribeye, 2 huge sirloins, 2-3 round steaks, probably 9-12 different roasts (arm, chuck, rump, etc.) and at least 30lbs. of ground beef.
In our setup the farmer will set a price per pound for the meat and the processor will tack on a processing fee per pound. In the end it usually comes out to around $2 a pound which is averge for ground beef in our area and a steal for roasts and steak. Not to mention the quality blows anything else I've ever had right out of the water.
If you don't have a farmer friend I think you can still get beef in this manner by contacting the processing facility. From what I've heard, many times farmers will take more steers to market than what they have buyers for and the processor handles finding people to take the rest. The downside to this is you don't know exactly where your beef came from. If you know the farmer than you know exactly which steer your beef is coming from and I can tell you from first hand experience there's a difference between corn fed black angus and grass feed holstein or hereford.
For me it works like this. My brother works for a grain elevator and consequently has numerous farmer friends. One in particular raises beef cattle and whenever he's taking a couple steers to market he'll ask my brother if any of us are interested in getting some beef. Between my various siblings we usually end up splitting one steer. He usually goes to market twice a year and we'll split a 1/4 steer each time with one of my other brothers or buy a full 1/4 one time.
1/4 of a steer tends to give us 100-150lbs. of beef which I've found will fill the entire freezer of a standard refrigerator. I would only plan to use such a freezer if you have a spare one that is mostly empty and is used only rarely. Constantly opening and closing the freezer door isn't good for the meat.
The processor cuts the meat to our specifications. They have a list of all the various roast and steak cuts and you tell them how big to make the roasts and how thick to cut the steaks. If there's a particular roast or steak you don't want they'll toss that into what will be ground for hamburger. For the 1/4 we got here recently we ended up with 6-9 strip steaks, 4 tenderloins (filet mignon), 6 ribeye, 2 huge sirloins, 2-3 round steaks, probably 9-12 different roasts (arm, chuck, rump, etc.) and at least 30lbs. of ground beef.
In our setup the farmer will set a price per pound for the meat and the processor will tack on a processing fee per pound. In the end it usually comes out to around $2 a pound which is averge for ground beef in our area and a steal for roasts and steak. Not to mention the quality blows anything else I've ever had right out of the water.
If you don't have a farmer friend I think you can still get beef in this manner by contacting the processing facility. From what I've heard, many times farmers will take more steers to market than what they have buyers for and the processor handles finding people to take the rest. The downside to this is you don't know exactly where your beef came from. If you know the farmer than you know exactly which steer your beef is coming from and I can tell you from first hand experience there's a difference between corn fed black angus and grass feed holstein or hereford.