Getting ready to process a steer

[zephyrhillsusan]

Reading Earnie's story has got me thinking ahead.  We're about to take a steer on June 30. First time we've ever used this butcher and not my first choice, but the one we love is only working in the fall and winter now. I asked about hanging 14 days if there's enough fat cover. They said they butcher on Tuesday and a week later they start cutting up, starting with the smallest carcass first. I said, "Well since ours is a Dexter he'll obviously be the smallest one there, but he might not be the skinniest! Could you please let him hang longer as long as there's enough fat?"  So the lady said I can talk with them when we take him, but I'm not holding my breath. I also HATE that he has to go the night before and stay in a pen on concrete with only water, no food. I asked if I could bring him hay, and they said no, but I may take some along with some feed "to get him into his pen" and then see if they'll let me leave it.  Obviously they're thinking more about clean-up than about the animal's welfare.  At least he'll be alone. I made very sure of that! I do not want his last night spent being bullied by bigger animals. Our other butcher gives them feed while they wait. If we want we can bring them just before he's ready to butcher. Obviously, he's much smaller and more flexible . . . and I want him back! But this steer needs to go now as he'll be 28 months old.

I'll remember to talk to them about Carol's knife test, although I wouldn't expect him to be tough.  I've already given DH notice that we have to go weigh the trailer empty and then with the steer before we take him.  I hate to make him take an extra ride, but it won't be far, and the butcher doesn't have a live weight scale.  We actually know how much this guy weighs because the person who sold him to us weighed him before, and we only paid $1 a pound for a 20-month old grassfed animal.  So I figure whatever we get out of him is icing on the cake.

[zephyrhillsusan]

We took Boudin today. We weighed him and the trailer at the Co-op, drove to the processor and unloaded him, then drove back to weigh the empty trailer. DH wanted to adjust for gas used up, so I calculated mileage and amount of gas used, looked up the weight of a gallon of gas, and calculated that we used up 18 pounds of gas. The co-op weighed him at 740 lbs., but I'm going to record 722 for our records in order to be really accurate. We bought him at 20 months in October, fed him hay (during the winter) and grass (the past six weeks). He was grassfed when we bought him. I'll post more after we get the hanging weight.

P.S.  The processor wrote him down as a calf!  I had to tell him he was a full-grown Dexter.     At least there was no question about his age!

[ssrdex]

Hi Susan. Did you get to leave his feed? Did you try to push for more hang time? I'm kind of glad that around here the killers all come to us, although it's at $125 an animal for kill, but when they leave you're left with nothing but stomach contents. My daughter and I did our last 2 animals ourselves, and it was a lot of work, but everything was very peaceful and calm. And we saved $250! The butcher we use will generally hang as long as possible, dependant on fat cover and how much space they have in cold box.

[zephyrhillsusan]

Joel, I didn't leave feed, but I did ask for a bucket of water for him. They apparently have a new set-up and haven't fixed bucket hangers yet, but the guy gladly filled a big bucket and tied it so Boudin couldn't knock it over. He noted down that we want more hang time. I said 14 days would be nice, but for him to use his discretion based on the fat cover. I wish, wish, wish we had mobile butchers here. I'm just not at the point that I could do it myself. Does your butcher take the meat with him to hang? I was wondering how that works when he goes there to your place.

[ssrdex]

Susan, the mobile guys all have stainless boxes on their trucks with small cherry picker type cranes mounted to raise the animal while gutting and skinning, and then for loading the sides into their boxes. The head, unless it's kept, hide and guts go in a separate box. They don't work for any one butcher shop, they will take the carcass where you ask them to. I wouldn't have tried it on my own without a tractor to do the heavy lifting. I'm sure your steer will be delicious!

[zephyrhillsusan]

I called today to get the hanging weight of our steer, Boudin. His live weight was 722 lbs. Hanging weight was 385 lbs. So that is 53% of live weight. How does that compare to the average?

It seems a bit low to me, although I'm not too surprised as we didn't have much rain this spring and the grass was slow to take off, so he didn't get as fat as he would have last spring when the grass went crazy from all the rain.

[Olga]

The MBDA beef carcass PDF shows 52.18% to 58.42% range for 5 animals 26 to 30 months of age.

[hollydzie]

Susan, I think that is about right. We did not have an actual live weight on our 23 month old steer that we just processed, but they estimated him to be around 700 lbs live. He hung at 343 lbs hot hanging weight. We ended up with 206 lbs of actual beef. We did NOT get any organs no soup bones just ground beef, fillets, ribeye and chuck roast. We have had some of each cut and I have been very very pleased. Patti, has posted about the different weights and %. Here was what she said.



Those are good weight estimates of what the typical Dexter carcass yields. What most people forget to consider is the moisture loss during the dry aging process when the carcass is hanging in the cooler.

Here's an example: If the hot carcass weight (hanging weight at time of slaughter) is 400 lb, and the carcass is hung for 14-16 days, the moisture weight loss is typically 20% of the hot carcass weight, or for this example, 80 lb. That means that when the processor actually cuts the dry-aged carcass in this example, it only weighs 320 lb. If it yields 60% of the hot carcass weight, you get 240 lb of boxed meat, but this is actually a 75% yield from the dry-aged carcass, which is a very good yield.

Patti

Read more: dextercattle.proboards.com/thread/4128/earnies-transformation-story-bull-beef?page=2#ixzz371qesKoo

[zephyrhillsusan]

Thanks, Holly. I found another post of Patti's, and based on that and what Olga posted, it looks like our steer was on the low end of normal. Now we just have to wait and see how it tastes!

[hamonsdexter]

Just got one of our beefs back. He was a 29 month old Steer. He had a hanging weight of 368 and 239 pounds of meat.