When you go out and buy your steak or roast, you can only expect consistent results if you know:

• Grade (very important),
• Aging (very important),
• Diet (important),
• Genetics (less important) and
• Age of the animal (less important)

When a store advertises “…cut from “A” or “higher grade”, it really means it is a crap shoot as to what you are getting. Consequently, your cooking and taste results will vary.  We like to compare it to your internet service. When you want to get online and you don’t know if you will get ‘dial up’, ‘cable’, ‘high speed’, or ‘satellite’ service, your results will truly be inconsistent. Most stores do not know (nor can they) what age of animal their meat comes from, since most meat is sold through brokers and can not be ‘source verified’. As with farmers markets and smaller local stores, management makes it their business to know who is growing their vegetables or is raising the meat they sell.

Quality will be more consistent because you know the producer, who is ultimately directly responsible, and accountable, to you. As always and with everything, knowledge empowers. Cook roasts with a meat thermometer for best results.

There are three different weights that customers should be aware when it comes to purchasing freezer beef. 

• The “Live” weight is what the animal weighed "on the hoof", or when it was alive.  The live weight for our yearlings usually average around 1000 lbs. 
• The “Hanging” weight refers to the weight of the carcass as it hangs in the butcher’s cooler once the head, hide, feet, organs and blood are removed.   The butcher base their processing fees on the hanging weight, and is the industry standard of measurement by direct to market farmers, thus the weight measurement we use when selling our beef.  There is about a 40% loss in weight from live to hanging.  So, a 1000 lb animal would have a hanging weight of 600 lbs (estimated).  A SIDE would then be 300 lbs; and a SPLIT would be 150 lbs (estimated).  
• The “Order” or “Final” weight is the weight of the order that each customer will have delivered.    The Order weight is usually about 70-80% of the Hanging weight.  The weight loss from hanging to final weight is a result of water loss and cutting instruction loss.  About 4% is water weight lost during the 14 day period that the carcass is hung (or “cured”).  Then about another 20-30% can be lost during the cutting process.  The more boneless cuts requested by the customer, the lower the final weight.  (Note: the lower weight doesn’t mean that you are receiving less meat – rather, you are receiving fewer bones).   

Hopefully this information is helpful to folks considering buying a SIDE or SPLIT. 
As always, please drop us a line if you have questions!