Beef Primals and Cuts

Choose the animal for the meat

USDA’s bulletin is blunt about expectations ¹:

• For meat like U.S. Choice: a 1,000- to 1,200-pound steer or 900- to 1,000-pound heifer on full feed at least 150 days. Feeding time builds fat in the lean (marbling), and the outside fat that comes with it is mostly trimmed off.
• For leaner beef: a steer or heifer grown on forage to 800 to 900 pounds.
• Under 17 to 18 months, properly cooked beef should be reasonably tender. Grass-fed yearlings of 400 to 600 pounds are lean and tender but less flavorful.
• “Many persons who slaughter on the farm expect the meat from an 800-pound forage-fed steer to taste like U.S. Choice or Prime.” It won’t.

Care is the same as for a hog: pen it clean and dry the day before, no feed for 24 hours, water always, and keep it calm ¹.

What a steer yields

• Dressing percentage: a well-fed steer’s carcass is about 60 percent of live weight. A 1,000-pound steer gives a 600-pound carcass ¹.
• Cutting loss (bone and fat trim) runs 20 to 30 percent or more. At 25 percent, that 600-pound carcass gives about 450 pounds of meat, and anywhere from 300 to 550 depending on fat ¹.
• Rule of thumb: a quarter waste, a quarter ground beef and stew meat, a quarter steaks, and a quarter roasts ¹.

Keep the knives sharp

The beef bulletin’s knife routine applies to all butchering ¹:

1. Grind a new knife’s bevel on a water- or oil-cooled stone, no more than 1/4 inch back from the edge, the same on both sides.
2. Hone on a fine stone set in a block or on a damp cloth: push down only with the guiding fingers (sideways pressure is how fingers get cut), and sweep heel to tip.
3. Steel often, on a smooth steel, at 20 to 25 degrees, alternating sides.

Test on your thumbnail: a sharp edge bites in; a dull one slides; a wire edge rasps ¹.

Stun, bleed, and dress

On the farm, stun with a .22 long rifle bullet aimed where lines from each side of the poll to the opposite eye cross, with the animal tied to a tree or strong post. Bleed within 2 minutes: grasp the lower jaw, pull the head back, and cut across the throat ear to ear as deeply as possible ¹. Dressing (removing the legs, siding, opening the brisket, hoisting, rumping, and gutting) is laid out step by step in the bulletin ¹ and follows the same principles as skinning a hog: open the hide from the inside out, blade up, keep hair and dirt off the meat, and tie off the bung ². A beef carcass needs a beam or limb 12 to 15 feet up ¹.

Quartering

Split the carcass down the backbone into sides, then separate each side into quarters between the last two ribs, leaving one rib on the hindquarter ¹. Leave a 4-inch strip uncut on the flank side while sawing so the forequarter doesn’t drop; cut it when someone is holding the quarter ¹.

• Forequarter: chuck, rib, brisket, plate, and foreshank. For a novice, the bulletin separates the chuck from the rib between the sixth and seventh ribs, a rib farther back than retail practice, because an older animal’s blade cartilage may have turned to bone ¹. The chuck then splits into blade and arm sections; the fourth to sixth rib ends make short ribs or ground beef.
• Hindquarter: flank first, then the loin (short loin and sirloin) and the round ¹.

Chill and age

Chill at 28 to 35°F, below 40°F, and don’t let it freeze the first day ¹. Then age at least 2 to 3 days so rigor is complete; “there is no benefit to aging beyond 7 to 9 days,” and long aging can shorten freezer life ¹.

Cutting orders for a locker plant: loin and rib steaks an inch or more for broiling, round and chuck steaks 1/2 to 3/4 inch for braising, about 3/4 pound bone-in per person, 1/2 pound per serving for ground beef ¹.

Try it

Price a quarter of beef from a local farm with your own numbers: ask the hanging weight, multiply by 0.75 for take-home meat, and divide the total price (including processing) by that. Then write a cutting order for a hindquarter: steak thickness, roast sizes, and how much goes to ground beef.

What to take from this

Choice-like beef needs a grain-finished animal of about 1,000 pounds on feed 150 days; forage-raised beef is leaner and won’t taste like Choice. A steer dresses at about 60 percent, and after 25 percent cutting loss a 1,000-pound steer gives about 450 pounds of meat: a quarter each waste, ground, steaks, and roasts. Grind, hone, and steel knives at 20 to 25 degrees. Quarter between the last two ribs, chill below 40°F without freezing, and age 2 to 3 days, never past 7 to 9.