Home Butchering Picture Tutorial (Steer)

Discussion in 'Back to Basics' started by monkeyman, Nov 18, 2005.


  1. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    b::
    Great read MM
    The green bag is the Gall Bladder.
    One thingI do when cutting hide, pull the knife up and the hide to the side at the same time, that way it doesnt cut any hair and keeps the hair off of the meat.
    Man great info MM easy to follow.
    [bow]
     
  2. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    For the rest of the cutting process you can pretty well look at the sections, generally from the ends, and pretty well see the cuts you buy at the store. On the T-bones for instance you look at the end of the short loin and can see the T-bone and where it tappers off to ribs, cut it off there then slice into steaks and cut the ribs into the size slabs you want to package. As I recall this is also the portion of the ribs that can be rolled up and tied to be a 'crown rib roast'. The main thing to remember is to cut across the grain or across the muscle (generally the muscle runs parallel to the bone) for steaks since cutting along the grain makes the meat tender but cutting with the grain of the meat is what you do when you want nice chewy jerky as it will be very tough. Now here are some pics of a few of the cuts we got, and if I can do this anyone can. While I have done a lot of pigs and deer and smaller animals, and skinned a lot of beefs, I did one buffalo this spring, but this is the first beef I have cut. We also got about 30+ pounds of excellent burger out of it.
    BTW; What I consider a nice steak most folks think of as a roast, I like my steaks cut an inch to an inch and a half thick.
    100_0432_115. 100_0434_199. 100_0435_329. 100_0440_167. 100_0442_345.
     
    KAS likes this.
  3. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Thanks Quig.
     
  4. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Downloaded and saved 55 lamb and 80 beef pix with 13 pages of notes, all cross referenced so even I cannot screw up. I can burn the files as is and send them to you, or we can wait until I figure out how to use PowerPoint and try to gin up something neat and useful. Might be a good idea to do both. In any case, onight I'm going to burn a CD with original data on it just in case I do (what has been done by many) something dumb and lose the data.

    Once the original CD is done, I'll go thru and edit things a bit for a future issue. MSWerd has spel chek in it, and I knead to us it because I spel not so gud sumtymes. In any case, your writing style is friendly, easy to read, and well sorted. Nicely put together, and in good order.

    If there are any edits you want to do, add or delete pix, change text, or whatever, send it along and color it done. I'll save and burn as needed.

    Nice work, bub.
     
  5. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Oh, well cool. I have a burner and while I havent burned he beef section yet I did on the lamb. The part I cant do myself is scanning that meat cureing book from Morton salt co. from the 50s so it can be passed around and shared on line since it has a lot of nearly lost info. It is good to hear though that you have a copy of whats been posted, and thanks for the positive feedback.
     
  6. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Yes, what they said mm.. Very user friendly and I love the pet stuff too.

    Very well done. That hide pulling pic with Marlboro hanging out of the mouth is classic!
    Thank you so much. Very good info and I love that it is all original content....
     
  7. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    Yeah figure I may post one of the 3 or 4 ways that will be on the CD of skinning and dressing a rabbit and then will put the other ways along with a couple for squirls and chickens and pics of one meathod with explanation of another on pigs, some recipees and so on and put it all on the CD...Then I may be seeing what you will let me do as far as advertiseing it here. [peep] b:: Figure I will probably try to get like $12-$15 for the complete tutorial on CD. At least based on what I have been able to find I figure that should be a decent deal on them.
     
  8. Brook

    Brook Monkey+++

    This is a really great tutorial! thanks!

    brook
     
  9. Tango3

    Tango3 Aimless wanderer

    thankyou very much for taking the time and effort to post these...You've got an extremely valuable skillset there, and a wicked set of knives...
     
  10. monkeyman

    monkeyman Monkey+++ Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I also have CDs for sale that have the completed refined tutorials on them for pig, cow, sheep and chickens along with some charts andrecipees and so on on them. If your interested you can PM me or find more info by doing a site search for 'from pasture to plate', IIRC its still a stickey on the general discussion section.
     
  11. AndyG

    AndyG Monkey+

    I have been a butcher in Australia for the last 40 years, but today I came across an interesting steer issue. Now I have cut up many bodies of beef as you describe as home "kills", but this is one I have never come across in all my years of working with meat.

    The beast was killed on Saturday and was hung and well bled. It was then skinned and gutted, and has not come in contact with anything that could cause any issues that we know of.
    It was then quartered and hung in a well ventilated shed and covered with kill sheets to keep the flys off.

    I was due to go and cut it up on fridat (2 days from now) which would have meant the carcase was hung for 6 days. The weather has been kind an has not gone over 20c degrees and with the breezes flowing through the shed the carcase was quite an acceptable temperature.

    [loco]I got a phonecall from my mate late last night to come and look at the beast this morning as he thought it was going off.

    When I arrived the neck portions of the body were turning green and were very gassy. ( this type of thing I would only expect after a couple of hotter days where the carcase got hot in the day and cold at night). As this was not the case I was a bit perplexed.

    We set about cutting up the carcase and removing the off portions with sterilizes equipment, and throwing out the affected parts.
    We then cut up, sliced, all the rest into portions and placed them straight into the freezers.
    We stopped for a meal break and ate a T-bone each for lunch, and went back to finish the cutting up of the meat.

    On our return to the work area we found an increasingly bad odure and the meat was going green around the areas that had been connected to bone.
    After trimming back these green bits again with sterilized gear we proceeded to finish off the carcase.

    As we placed more meat in the freezers we checked the previous packages and ended up removing about 1/3 of the meat we had prepared and had to throw it out as it was giong off almost as fast as we were preparing it.


    Now the couple of questions I want answeres to are;
    1. does anyone have a reasonable idea of why this could happen?
    2. What is the cause of this issue? as in all my career as a meat worker I have never encountered this before.
    3. Any help would be good just to ease my mind on this issue.
    Regards
    AndyG
     
  12. TheMeatGuy

    TheMeatGuy Monkey+

    AndyG,

    A couple of questions come to mind. First, what was the size of the animal? What was the night time temperature where the carcass was hanging and what was the duration of temperatures below 4c and the duration of temps in the 20c range during this time?

    All of the symptoms described are consistent with an improperly chilled carcass. I've seen this before, mostly on larger game animals taken in warm weather. Reasonably, the larger the animal the longer it takes to chill.

    The internal temperature of the thickest part of the animal should be reduced to 4c - 7c within 24 hours of slaughter and this takes several hours at 0c. When working without mechanical refrigeration conditions are not always optimal so we must do what we must do.

    For the benefit of those less experienced, I will add that I am a big fan of skinning and evisceration immediately after slaughter as this removes the majority of the body heat. A thorough cold water washdown helps too. Kill sheets or shrouds should be of clean cotton fabric and applied to a wet carcass. Evaporation helps speed the cooling process and even more so if there is some air movement. I advise against using plastic to wrap the carcass during the chill time as it traps heat and prevents evaporation from the surface of the meat and this creates an environment favorable to bacterial growth.

    I hope this helps with your concerns.

    Southern Indiana Butcher Supply - Meat, Sausage, & Jerky Supplies

    Follow us on Facebook Southern Indiana Butcher Supply | Facebook
     
  13. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    AndyG and TMG -

    Welcome aboard, and thanx for bumping the thread, it has been dormant for a while. Can we persuade you guys to gin up some tutorials for, say, sausage making using low tech gear?
     
  14. Jayway

    Jayway Monkey+

    After shooting the animal,we usually push an iron rod onto the hole and push hard, This stops a lot of the kicking. Then we can grab a front leg, rope around ankle and hitch it high (ours is a pulley on the rafter) before cutting the throat, so bleeding out is more efficient.(we do catch the blood in a pan) Dont envy you cutting down the spine with a handsaw !
     
  15. BrotherBobL

    BrotherBobL Monkey+

    Please as with the lamb I would love the cd for the steer, I find few things worth actully buying for reference but this is worth it and then some. Please pvt msg me so I may purchase your CD. I do not know how to PM or I would do so. Thank you very much.
     
  16. horology

    horology Monkey+

  17. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    The author is monkeyman. To send him a PM, click on his name in the first post (upper left corner) that will open a drop down menu that you can click on a link to send a PM. Have patience, it might be a couple days 'till he gets back to you, but he will.
     
  18. bnmb

    bnmb On Hiatus Banned

    Superinfections with Clostridia family bacteria always do something like that.
    6 days is more then enough to cause the symptoms you gave. If it was alive, it would be gangrene...If I was you, I would dump and burry the lot.
    The most well known member of Clostridia family is Clostridium Botulinum and its poison. One glass of that poison could kill entire human population!
    All in all, if I press on the meat, and hear crepitations (crackling, like small bubbles bursting), I steer clear of that meat, and if human, I start boiling the saw!... ;)
     
  19. sarawolf

    sarawolf Monkey+++

    Lots of experience here I see.
    You know we didn't even think of taking pictures when we butchered our last yak. DUH we should have.
    They are tough to butcher as their hide weighs a ton. The fat clings to it and is very hard to separate from the meat. But we got it done. One of our sons came for the weekend and helped.
    [​IMG]
    oc 021.
     
  20. Equilibrium

    Equilibrium Monkey++

    This is the best thread I've read on all of Survival Monkey and..... I've read a lot. What totally awesome photos and tutorials.
     
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