If you know how to cook a melt in your mouth, delicious, boneless rump roast, please do share it with me because maybe I'm missing out on something. The last area is the flank. It's located below the loin and has no bones. It's lean, flavorful, but tough. It used to be pretty inexpensive but people now want more lean meat. Probably not us homesteaders though since we all like our lard and tallow.
The two main cuts from the flank area are:. Like I said, with those tougher areas that we aren't having made into steak cuts or roasts they can turn them into ground beef and ground beef patties, stew meat, kabob meat more evenly cut and a little bit smaller than stew meat , and strips such as fajita or carne asada cuts.
If you can't find a local farmer you can contact your local butcher. Oftentimes they will sell meat independently too, but they should also be able to point you in the direction of some local farmers.
Now we're going to talk about the cuts that aren't normal that haven't been covered yet that you might not be familiar with. This is the big leg of the cow and not what your soup bones come from. Oftentimes people assume that's what the soup bones are but as we talked about earlier, the soup bones have meat on them.
But when you ask for the marrow or femur bone there will be no meat attached to them. They will be just bones. You can request that the butcher cut them up into three-inch pieces. The reason you want this is that it makes beautiful broth because the bones have been cut open so you have all that marrow from that large leg bone.
Because of all that marrow,you'll get a gel like no tomorrow. It's gorgeous and you'll love it. Another way that you can use them is by roasting them. My son and husband love the marrow from roasted bones.
It's like a delicacy. A lot of other nations and cultures love bone marrow and will use them this way too. Be sure to ask the butcher to chop them up for you though. You want to make sure you can access and get the most marrow out of the bones as possible. The other thing that you may or may want to get, totally up to you, is the tallow. Tallow is the fat from a cow. When it's pig fat, it's called lard.
With beef, it's called tallow. Some people think that tallow is a lot smellier and it's a lot harder. Unlike lard, tallow is not something that you'll want to use to make your pie crusts and things like that.
Now, you can definitely use tallow for frying and cooking, but what most people like to use tallow for is for salves, balms, and soap making. You'll need to render it down just like you would lard.
Back in the pioneer days, they also used the fat as their candles. Now, a lot of people feel tallow is smellier than lard and so they don't like to use it for candles because of the smell. It's very nourishing to the skin so it's great to use in your soaps, balms, salves, and ointments.
It walks you through making your own homemade soap, making your own candles, and making your different whipped body butters, salves, balms, and ointments. There are a couple of different ways you can ask for the tallow to be given to you. Some people ask for the fat to be ground up because the smaller the pieces the easier it is to melt evenly when rendering it down to get the impurities out.
I actually prefer mine to be in chunks and then I'll chop it up into cube form. When it's ground-up there's more meat in the fat. When I ask for it in strips I don't get as much meat on it. I don't want the meat on it because that's what I'm trying to get out. I want pure fat. If you don't ask for them, you won't get the femur bones nor the tallow.
So definitely as for them if you want them. Cuts Chart Pioneering Today Academy. I hope you enjoyed learning when butchering a cow cuts of meat you need to know to get the most from your beef! Melissa K. Norris inspires people's faith and pioneer roots with her books, podcast, and blog. Melissa lives with her husband and two children in their own little house in the big woods in the foothills of the North Cascade Mountains.
When she's not wrangling chickens and cattle, you can find her stuffing Mason jars with homegrown food and playing with flour and sugar in the kitchen.
Great article! For organ meat you take it the day the animal is killed. I have a couple of comments. So I was curious of your names on some of the cuts. My husband is a custom meat processor, and has been for about 30 years. When describing flanken style ribs, what do those exactly come off of? And what do they look like. We take ours from the plate area and slice them to look like bacon. Also, talking about tenderloin steaks and filet mignon, these are the same cut. Maybe just prepared differently.
So again, what does the difference look like to you? I take and get tenderloin medallions bacon wrapped tenderloin and New York steaks cut from our beef. And having been in this business for several years, I have known many cattlemen to butcher a heifer over a steer because they fill out faster and produce more fat marbling in steaks, faster than a steer.
So the section discussing steer growth over a cow is false. A cow is much older and has given birth to a calf. Where as a heifer vs. And buyers need to know that. Just burger. One last thing. The flank is only about as big as a piece of paper.
And only one per side. We use it for fajitas, stir fry, or roll it up for pinwheels. Now my suggestion. I too do not enjoy the toughness of the single muscle rump area. We love our chicken fried steaks!! Melissa, I need to correct myself. Not fill out. And yes steers are a larger animal because they genetically built to be so. And yes , tenderloin is filet mignon. It is the way it is prepared.
All in all, it comes down to having a good relationship with your processor. Talking it over with them and getting an education from both producer and processor will help with your order.
We specialize is custom cutting and encourage anyone to call and talk over what their specific needs are. Family size and cutting style is key for each order!! I like how you mentioned that chuck, rib, loin, round, flank, short plat, brisket, and shank are all different types of meat cuts. Thank you for such an informative piece. I am in the process of purchasing my first cow to be butchered. Thank you. My question is where would you get the cubed steak? The low during the night was 33 degrees F.
The next morning my husband and I cut the six chilled beef pieces into smaller pieces so that they could fit into our two refrigerators. These refrigerators are perfect for us because they are refrigerators and with a flip of a switch they turn into freezers. The beef will age in the refrigerator for two weeks before we cut it up.
After the cow has been aging in the refrigerator for about two weeks it is time to butcher the beef. To make the meat a bit easier to cut, I switch the button from refrigerator to freezer, to firm up the meat; it is easier to cut slightly frozen meat from our experience. Once the meat is cold enough to cut, my husband cuts the meat and I package it. I package meat by using two different methods. One method is just placing it inside of zip-locking freezer bags.
I use this method for meat that I will eat soon and make sure to place the bagged meat in an easy to reach place in my freezer to remind me to cook this first. The freezer bags can be bought in bulk at a warehouse store and are fairly inexpensive. Also if you plan ahead you can often find a coupon and a sale at the same time, which saves money.
The second method is packaging the meat in vacuumed sealed bags. I have a Food Saver vacuum sealer machine.
The food in the vacuumed sealed bags stays fresher longer and do not get freezer burn. Meat that I will consume in more than six months into the future are placed in the vacuum sealed bags. Obviously, the vacuumed sealed bags are more expensive to purchase and do require more handling time to package the meat correctly.
My husband has a meat saw that he purchased second-hand through a local restaurant supply store. This meat saw has been a blessing because it makes the meat cuts look better and it is easier to cut through the bones saving us time. Using a meat saw can be dangerous, so it is imperative to learn how to use a meat saw correctly. There are many online and video resources as well as books that can help you to learn how to use the meat saw.
My husband learned how to make his meat cuts using videos from Ask The Meat Man. He ordered videos and watches them before each slaughter and butcher day to refresh his memory. My best advice is to wear protective equipment and to go slowly and take your time in making your cuts. Do not get distracted in what you are doing. We cut several different types of steaks.
We cut top round, bottom round, eye round, sirloin tip, T-bone, porter house, arm steak and rib steak. We also cut roast, fajita meat, brisket, ribs, soup bones, stew meat, tongue and oxtail. As we are cutting the meat, we put aside pieces of meat that need to be deboned as well as other meat that can be used to make ground beef.
The truth is, however, that there's no need to pay someone. Although the job does entail a good bit of labor and no little mess—just like most any move to greater self-sufficiency—killing and butchering a cow is a task you and a single helper can accomplish yourselves in a few hours. Start by choosing a nice late fall day Here in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, we do our butchering—"before the flies arise"—on a November morning. If you plan to cool the carcass yourself, though, you might prefer starting the job in the early evening.
Gather your equipment—you'll need some knives, saws, a hoist, a support, and a spreader—and round up a helper. Then confine your steer and shoot it. Take your time with the killing and do it as cleanly as possible. Fill a gauge shotgun with high brass No. Then carefully aim for the spot where the lines cross and fire. The shot will make a silver dollar-sized hole in the animal's skull, and the beast will immediately drop to the ground.
At that point you or your assistant should keeping your back to the body and watching for thrashing hooves—set one foot against the animal's forelegs and force its head back as far as possible with your other foot.
Then, using a sharp knife, cut along the bottom of the neck for about 10 to 15 inches—the breastbone forward—and make the incision deep enough to expose the wind-pipe without piercing it. Next, insert the knife to one side of the windpipe with the back of the blade against the breastbone and press the point—toward the spine—to a depth of four inches or so to cut the carotid arteries and jugular veins.
After the carcass has bled as much as it will, drag it to a clean area to be skinned. For obvious health reasons, cleanliness is essential during this entire operation. Prop the animal on its back, then start your skinning cuts by slicing the hide around each foot and making a long slit down the inside of each leg. Complete these incisions with one long center cut—down the middle of the body—from the beef's anus to its throat. Then use your knife to slice through any membranes and peel the skin back off the body.
Let gravity help with as much of the work as possible. This is also the time—while you've got the carcass on its back—to cut through the brisket. Use a hacksaw or handsaw, and avoid slicing into the internal organs. The same tool can then be employed to remove all four feet just above the ankles. Your next job will be to suspend the animal so you can finish skinning the beef and clean out its internal organs.
Cut large slits in each of the steer's two rear legs, between the Achilles tendon and the main bone but don't cut the tendon! Insert a crosspiece of strong wood or pipe through the two gashes we use a solid steel "spreader" with hooks on the ends.
Then fasten this beef "tree" to your hoisting line and run that cable over a very sturdy tree limb or through a metal ring suspended from a large tripod. Attach the free end of line to a winch and start winding. Each crank of the come-along will raise the thousand-pound carcass only a fraction of an inch, but before long you'll have hoisted the entire beef up in the air. One worker should now skin the hide off the back side, while the other makes the main body cut from the anus, down the center of the belly, to the previously sawed brisket.
To begin this major incision, slice around the rear opening until that canal is free and then seal off the end with string. Remove the tail at its base and start cutting the body wall membranes that hold the intestines and other organs. The pull of gravity will help clean those innards out. Be sure to trim off the large globs of fat positioned along the backbone.
Separate the heart and liver from the other organs, slice open the heart so that clotted blood can escape, and carefully cut the bitter gallbladder sack from the liver. Immerse these two major organs in a bucket of water to cool them. At this point, the skinner should have finished his or her job.
Next, cut off the head, pry open the mouth, and slice between the lower and upper jaws to remove the tongue. Use an old knife when working in the steer's mouth, because the necessary scraping against bones and teeth will surely dull the blade. Now take a short breather and admire your handiwork. An entire beef carcass is hanging right before your eyes.
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