Does anyone buy bulk meat- like half a steer?

[Bernadine]

Or a quarter?  How much do you pay?  How do you get it cut?  We're splitting a quarter steer with my parents to try it out, and it's all foreign to me.

[TrickyBob]

We are buying half of a cow after taxes. It will cost us $700 and then another $160 to be wrapped in butcher paper. It will be 320lbs of meat that will include a hind quarter and a front quarter. I am so freaking excited.

I did a ton of research and visited a lot of the local butchers/looked up ranches. The best deal was $2.30 a pound from the local butcher. (We get deer processed there, so we know their work).

[TrickyBob]

Also, half a cow can range anywhere from $500 to $1000+ depending on what you want. Some will give you 160lbs of any kind of meat, some will give you 160lbs of just front or hind. Almost all places let you pick the cuts you want, dependent on where they are coming from.

Organic, 100% grass feed beef is on the $1000 side, while general butcher cows (that you'd buy from a butcher) are usually a LOT lower in price. So sometimes it comes down to; do you want $6 a pound or do you want $2.30/$2.50 a pound.


ETA: Ask the place to give you a break down of the cuts of meat; generally you are going to get steaks, roasts, and ground. But the nice steaks come from only one of the  1/4 and not the other, I forget if it is front or hind. Also ask them which quarter they are using or if they are using a mix of front and hind. 

ETA #2: Keep in mind that a 7cubic foot freezer can hold 196lbs of frozen food. While a 5cubic foot holds 175lbs. We have 50lbs of deer in the top rack of the pull out drawer of a french door freezer and that is maxed out. So just make sure you have the room for 80lbs. 

[Saint Monica]

[Deleted]

DH and I are breaking vegetarianism this spring because we will have room for a deep freezer finally. We're going to be going to a local farm that has organic, grass fed Texas Longhorns (in PA. I know.).

Their price is $4.99 per pound with an estimated 100 pounds hanging weight for 1/4 of a longhorn.

[nicanmatt]

Feb 10, 2014 10:44:31 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

Or a quarter?  How much do you pay?  How do you get it cut?  We're splitting a quarter steer with my parents to try it out, and it's all foreign to me.

A farm by my house sells beef, its awesome and we've been buying from them for several years now. They have it cut and packaged for us, so we don't get to choose how its cut, but its grass fed and sososososo gooooood. It lasts us a really long time since we eat beef only a few times a month or so. I think we paid $800+ last time.

[Bernadine]

We're buying from J's uncle. Luckily, we don't have to pay the butcher fees. I'm excited to try this out.

[eb777888]

A lot of people do that here. I'm so jealous, I'd love to do this but we don't have a deep freezer.

[circa1978]

We bought a quarter of a cow this summer and half a pig this winter. It's been great.

The quarter cow was $360 and we got T-bone, strip, and filet steaks cut to 1", packaged in twos. Sirloin steaks cut to 1/2", packaged in twos. Roasts cut into 2-3lbs. Ground beef in 1lb pkgs. Brisket, short ribs, and flank steak cut out of roasts.

The hog was less. H wrote the check but I don't know the exact amount. We got ham steaks, bacon, unseasoned ground pork, roast cuts, a ham, chops and other porky things like hocks and the skin, which I have no idea what to do with.

It's all grassfed/pastured and humanely raised on a family farm.

[nomad100]

We get a 1/4 steer. We pay about 3.30/lb hanging weight (about 175/lbs) and get about 65-70% of that weight in meat.

We also get a whole pig at about $1.95/lb hanging weight so about 200/lbs)and get about 70% in the hanging weight in meat.

We have 2 freezers to hold all this. And we buy about every 18 months or so.

[sugarbear]

We buy 1/2 a grass-fed cow, a lamb, and a quarter pig every 6 months or so. We split it with friends. I think it all averages out to ~$3/pound.

[OrangeBanana]

We buy a quarter of beef every fall from a local farmer. We pay the farm for the meat and then pay the butcher shop for the processing. They usually call us when the beef is ready to be cut and I tell them how we want it done.....how much ground beef, how thick to cut steaks, how big to cut roasts, how many hamburger patties we want and how many to a package ect. I like to ask if they have an suggestions for different cuts that I might not have gotten before. This time we got a brisket.

Last fall I think we paid right around $800 total for our beef. It was a really big quarter and some of the fancier cuts I requested were additional money. Beef has really gone up in price around here too.

[IndiaInk]

I have a ranch and sell grass-fed/finished beef - we charge our customers $3.75/lb on the hanging weight. A 1/4 usually weighs around 125 lbs hanging so that's $470.00. Once the hanging quarter is cut and packaged, it loses some of the weight because they cut off bone and fat, etc. You usually end up with about 65% of the hanging weight to take home as packaged meat.

Technically, a quarter is either the front or back end of the cow, right? However, the front and rear end have vastly different cuts of meat, so usually the butcher will cut the HALF (aka the side) and then divvy up the cuts evenly between the two customers purchasing quarters. You may get some say in how you want your cuts, but you'd have to talk to your contact person about that. You usually get more say if you're buying the half or the whole animal. If you are splitting this quarter with your parents, you'll soon realize that it's not going to split perfectly evenly. i.e., there will probably only be one package of brisket so you won't be able to split that.

If you have any more questions, PM me and I can give you some more options for the kind of cuts you can ask for and explain what they all mean.

[TrickyBob]

IndiaInk What is boiling meat? This is an option they gave us among all the other cuts and I have no idea what it is.

[Knight]

H knows a farmer that gives us one of his cows every year. He and his business partner each take half and I think it's about $500 to the butcher for our half. The meat typically lasts us all year even after giving some to H's employee. I love it. The cow is well treated and we know where it comes from and it really does taste better than supermarket meat.

[Bernadine]

I've got J asking now if it's a front, back, or split quarter.

[lmbml]

We did that last spring. We bought 160 lbs for $2.10 a pound and then $100 for the butcher. It was grass fed, no hormones etc beef. It is really good and awesome to have all kinds of cuts hanging out in the freezer. We've made a lot of different meals with it. I can't wait to do it again when this is all gone. We're also looking into a pig, it's like $1.95 a pound from the Hutterites.

[IndiaInk]

Feb 10, 2014 11:46:50 GMT -5 TrickyBob said:

IndiaInk What is boiling meat? This is an option they gave us among all the other cuts and I have no idea what it is.

I have never heard of that.  My guess would be soup bones or stew meat. (As an aside, our soup bones usually have a TON of meat on them, and make the most delicious soup or broth so don't turn that down if they offer them.)  Can you ask your contact for more clarification?   There's a big difference between soup bones and stew meat.