Are you confused yet?  Hanging Carcass Weight?  Packaged weight?  Aging?  Grass finished vs. Grain finished?    By now you are probably ready just to go back to the grocery store.  Don’t give up yet Partner.  Here is what you need to know:

Cattle are not created equal.  Some breeds produce a higher yield of meat compared to other breeds.  Some produce more marbled / more flavorful meat than others.  They also grow to different sizes.  Thus one might reason then, that a more difficult choice is what kind of beef you might want.  To answer this question, you need to understand the differences between the breeds, the finishing, and then finally, the processing.

The Breeds:

Beef cattle breeds, like Hereford, Angus, and Wagyu, to name a few, are referred to as such because they generally produce heavier and more flavorful carcasses.  You should be asking next, what is the case with the other breeds?  Well, some are used for producing smaller calves or might be more drought tolerant,  Examples of these include Longhorn cattle, which are not known for their marbling or the sizes of their beef carcasses.  Excellent beef doesn’t come from “justacow” your buddy picked up at the live stock market and took to the processor.  No sir.

Finishing:

Cattle are grazers, meaning, they eat grass… and for the most part they all eat grass.  So, one might reason they are all grass fed to some extent.  Finishing, on the other hand, is a different matter.  Some ranchers sell grass finished beef, which is often a smaller and less marbled carcass.  Some people believe their personal allergies are exasperated by gluten the animal consumes or that perhaps the beef naturally has more omega 3 fatty acids.  These people are often purchasing smaller sides of beef that are very lean and often have smaller steaks, etc.  Restaurants, on the other hand almost unilaterally serve grain finished beef.  Grain finishing is generally a ration of some type of grains oriented at providing a balance of calories and flavors that give the meat its marbling and flavor.  These steakhouse cuts are usually larger and are way more marbled.  You might have heard these referred to as prime or choice.  A prime steak house, typically serves prime cuts of meat.  Prime is a measure of intramuscular fat (marbling) in the meat.  Grain finishing is an investment by the rancher in the finishing of the meat.  This, in contrast to grass finished, typically takes more time and certainly more money, thus, grain finished is generally more expensive meat.  But for some of us, we’re just going to buy the grain finished beef.

And to dispel the myth on omega 3’s…  grass fed beef has something like twice as much omega 3’s as grain finished.  And Salmon has something like 30 times as much omega 3’s as grass finished!  The moral of the story is, if its omega 3’s you want, eat salmon, otherwise enjoy beef for what it does provide, which are iron, zinc, and vitamin B12…  just to name a few.  

Processing:

Finally in the processing, you are introduced to terms like: aging, hanging carcass weight (HCW), and packaged meat.  The skinned halves are hung in a cooler for a period of time, this is referred to as dry aging.  During this process, water evaporates from the meat and enzymes within the meat begin to mature the flavors and certainly make the meat more tender.  The meat also contracts and stretches prior to butchering.  Most processors will age the meat between 14-21 days.  

A hanging carcass will weigh approximately 60% of the steer on the hoof after removing the skin, head, and guts.  The packaged meat will weigh approximately 50-55% of the hanging carcass weight after cutting the beef off the bones, etc..  The keen beef side consumer is going to pretty quickly observe that many ranchers are selling sides of been by the hanging carcass weight (HCW), it is important for the consumer to know, the packaged meat will only be about 50-55% of this HCW.  The price per pound of the HCW will be somewhere near half the cost per pound of the packaged meat…  but you will still get the same amount of packaged meat.  This is important to note, as after you just spent $6.50 a pound for 924 pounds on the HCW, you might be disappointed to find out you only got about 480 pounds of meat.  So, know that.

Conclusion:

So, it is hard to get a fixed quantity of beef by the half or whole because larger cattle will provide more beef cuts.  Ranches offering you a fixed price for a fixed quantity are hedging their bets and typically, there is a lot of meat left over.  Grain finished is widely regarded as being more flavourful and a better steak eating experience.  Larger cattle are going to produce larger steaks, roasts, briskets, ribs, etc.  And make sure you are comparing HCW to HCW or price per pound of packed weight to packaged weight between ranches as the consumer will be misled to find that 924 pounds of HCW for $7 a pound is more expensive than buying 480 pounds of packaged meat for $11.88 a pound.  The consumer might also be disappointed to find out they got 140 pounds of meat from a half a grass finished steer vs. 240 pounds from a grain finished steer.  So, know what you want to buy and how to buy it.