carcass evaluation course

[rusty1]

I learned something at the IGA on Sat. The beef in the case is there for 3 days. After that they grind it up into hamburger. No matter what the cut was. He said the meat counter has the highest shrink in the store. Wow. 3 days is not necessary. No wonder the rest costs so much.

[nerves]

Rusty you must remember that is un frozen. 3 days unfroze is enough any thing we sell has to be sold froze and our local health unit has to inspect our faciltiy also. Meat saftey is number 1 right nobody wants a lawsuit.

[grassfarmer]

Nerves, here is a question you could maybe help me with. We took a good,fat 12-1300lb red angus cull cow to a processor a few weeks back. Picked up the meat and got quite a surprise at how little we got back - we paid on 696lbs hanging weight and took off around 50lbs of the very best cuts - T-bone, sirloin, tenderloin etc and had the rest made into lean and extra lean ground beef. How much weight of ground should we have expected? I have a feeling we were robbed.

[cswilson]

If the cow weighed 1200 lbs she yielded 571/2 percent or 52 if she weighed 1300-good hard cows usually yield around 54 percent so I don't think you were too hard done by.

[grassfarmer]

cs, Thanks for the input, I have no problem with the hanging weight - it is the post cutting weight I am querying, how much would you expect of that given the cutting specs I gave? The hanging weight is good and high - but that is what I pay them on afterall!!

[whiteface]

Where did you take her grassfarmer, that'll tell you if you were robbed. Some places are sure getting cheeky, I could just about list them for you, not sure if I'm allowed to anything like that here, but I have mentioned one or two in my travels that I think guys should sure stay away from. Hope you weren't ripped off too badly.

[grassfarmer]

Lets just say it was in Ponoka

[nerves]

grassfarmer that is what most of them do they charge by the hanging weight. So take one third of your hanging weight and that is bone so you should have about 467 pounds of meat now 50 pounds steak and about 400 pounds hamburger. The more deboneing and processing the plant does the more expensive it becomes. If the animal is over 30 months old you should not have T-bone. The spinal cord runs through the center of the T-bone. The good thing about selling young stuff is that you get paid for the bone weight in the meat on some cuts. We found that if sell by the side and they pay for cutting and wrap then it is easier to put a price on the animal. But if you piece out the animal you need a sharp pencil and you need to know the value of your meat and the quality of your cuts. We are still learning lots and we have been doing it a while.

[nerves]

should also add that if the animal was fat you would lose alot more weight to get the fat out or trim to make lean ground. We usally get the trim saved and use it later to make patties sausage etc, in processed products were you would want fat. Fat animals make great steaks and roasts but less quality ground. Lean animals make great ground but poor quality steaks and roasts. So you need to have in your mind the type of meat you want to sell. You need to talk to the processor about what to do with trim if you don"t he will use it later on in his products ask lots of questions. Hope this helps

[cswilson]

We eskimo dress our deer when were hunting so it should work on beef. just take your knife and remove all the meat down both sides of backbone only takes a minute and you get two nice big chunks of boneless meat. Then we quarter them and trim the neck meat out and your done. Not a heck of alot of meat on ribs anyway, if your gonna grind it all really hanging isn't really necessary.