The first meal eaten from the meat we got at the cow party.
Our steers are raised and grazed on 100% USDA certified organic pasture.
Our grass-fed beef price for this year is $3.70 per pound (same price as last year) hanging weight for the beef, your total cost with slaughter and processing is explained below. All figures are approximate since we won’t know the exact weights until time of processing.
Slaughter is $50.00 and cut and wrap is $.75 per pound based on hanging weight. The wrapping is in cryovac, which will keep your beef for up to two years.
Assume 1,000 lbs. on the hoof for figuring purposes, it may weight up to 1,200 lbs. or as little as 900 lbs.
55% of live weight on rail = 550 lbs. x $3.70 = $2035 + (.75 x 550) $412 = $2447 + $50 = $2,497
Cut and wrapped meat = 75% x 550 = 412 lbs. (plus soup bones & sausage) (sausage is optional)
$2,497 / 412 lbs. = $6.06 (This average will run from $6.50 to $6.75) per pound for your organic pasture grazed, grass-fed beef. This is about the price of one pound of ground grass-fed beef at a Farmer’s Market or at Whole Foods Market. This is clearly the most economical way to feed your family with all the health benefits of grass-fed beef.
For half a beef the cost is just that, one half of the above cost of a whole beef.
We like to dry age our beef in the cold storage from 14-21 days, so add this time to the slaughter date to determine your pickup date. We deliver your steer to the locker plant and you pick it up, unless other arrangements are made with us in advance.
What exactly are beef 'cheeks'? Gourmet Traveller breaks down what beef cheeks are, how to cook them, and what to pair them with when you introduce them into your kitchen.
Thirteen of the “partners” got together at 11:30am to draw lots to form a line to take turns choosing individual cuts from the cow. Though it was just one entire cow, the butcher threw in some additional tongues, testicles, and other additional offal for us to select from as well.
Here’s what was included in my 18 turns:
1.2 lb New York steak, bone in
1.0 lb New York steak, bone in
1.2 New York steak, bone in
1.4 lb Ribeye, bone in
0.5 lb top sirloin steak
0.5 lb top sirloin steak
2.4 lb bottom round roast
2.5 lb beef tritip large
0.4 lb top sirloin steak
1.9 lb beef short ribs
1.1 lb stew beef
1.1 lb stew beef
1.1 lb stew beef
1.2 lb beef cheek
1.4 lb beef oxtails
0.9 lb beef oxtails
1.4 lb beef testicles
1.3 lb beef fat
Everyone also went home with an additional box of ground beef. Mine contained 16 packages of 1lb each of ground meat as well as 2.2lbs of beef ground with heart and 0.9lbs of beef ground with liver.
This comes out to 41.6 pounds of meat in all and price of roughly $11.78 per pound.
Sadly I missed out on some nice shoulder cuts, some tongue, and I had tried to get some tripe instead of the testicles, but alas, there were apparently other menudo fans in our group.
My freezer is chock full of some serious meat for a while. Most of the cuts are fairly straightforward and I’ve already got a good idea of what I’m going to do with them. I will have to take a peek at what I ought to do for the Rocky Mountain Oysters. I’m leaning toward turning them into some delicious tacos, but I’ll take any suggestions from those who’ve done other variations before.
I do want to make an inventory of the price per pound for individual cuts versus typical markets to see how the pricing works out, as I suspect that some likely did better than others within the “lottery” system this set up. The tough part will be finding local markets that purvey this high a quality of meat for a reasonable comparison.
