Trying to Beat the HIGH costs for meat.

[Joey Mack]

So my wife came home from the grocery store today, in a bad mood...     Chicken Thighs: $1.79/lb.......  Pork Chops: $6.49/lb......  Never mind Beef prices..  

What I'm asking is.........   How do we find meat farmers who sell fresh meat and maybe ship it, and at an affordable price.? I have looked locally on the Web, but it seems like the info is hidden, and you have to connect with a sales site rather than the farmer/butcher..   Jojo

[70mackMB]

Joey, Do you have any slaughter houses near you? We have one next town over that has his own small store.    http://lemayandsonsbeef-bbq.com/our-services/price-sheet/   .....Hippy

[Joey Mack]

I believe so, but web searches are B.S..  Not as ''Country'' here as it was when I lived in Maine..  

[BOBWhite]

$20 to $50 and up can get you a deer tag some years, in my state that is. We really like jerky so that's what we do with ours if we get a deer.

I live in beef country so some ranchers will call us if they have a broken leg cow they can't sell. We get beef cheep or free but it takes a lot of work to butcher right. 

I've been stuck eating a lot of tuna lately, even here meat prices get pretty pricey.

Edited November 3, 2023 by BOBWhite

[mechohaulic]

noticed before the Holidays  a  straight truck parked in the lot of tractor supply with big sign and a line of people buying steaks. couldn't possibly have to do with TS selling grills !! miss the days of having my Grandparents farm and raising my own,  figured the total cost for one beefer from raising to butcher/table ;; $.25 (twenty five cents ) a pound. don't do a lot of beef and burgers much now  ; only due to work less and holding off the pounds gets much harder with age.

[Brocky]

The man, my age, that rents my pasture land said his son has a friend who runs a local slaughter house and he has been selling a lot of his beef cut and wrapped.

[mrsmackpaul]

Well the exact opposite has happened in Australia 

After a drought for a few years in a row we have had the best seasons I have ever seen in my life fir the last few years

The farmers out bid everone to restock and now Australia, at least the eastern half is over stocked and a drier year is predicted this year

Cattle prices have more than halved this year in the sale yards

Super markets are different, the meat price has dropped a little 

I'm not really a pork or chicken man but I  do prefer lamb chops, used to buy a side of lamb once 

As far as butchering a beast (cow or steer) you need probably at least one person that really knows what they are doing to break down the quarters and at least two good helpers to then process (make it into steak and mince roast, silver side etc)and pack the meat 

You then need a huge deep freeze and restack it eack week as it slowly freezes

It takes three of us all day to do a beast 

This doesn't include the day you kill it as the meat needs to hang for a week in cool room to set, if you don't let it set, butchering is a huge job as it just wobbles about

And yes I have done a few in my life

Anyone that says they can do a beast in a few hours isnt been honest and isnt including killing,  quartering, salting the hide, then butchering 

You can break the quarters down to cuts of meat in a few hours but definitely not butcher it

And you need a really good back to carry the quarters from the front end loader or were ever you killed the beast into the cool room

Is it worth it, with out a doubt in my mind it is but it's a huge job

Ideally we would find people we new quite well and swap meat about so we got plenty of lamb and pork and they got plenty of beef

Only swap meat with people you know well because if they haven't chilled it right you can easily end up crook and chucking meat away

We also run all the bones thru the band saw for the dogs later on and put the bones in freezer

 

Paul

[mechohaulic]

whether it was cattle or hogs , the butchering was part of farmer life. couple hr project never . day started out by 4 am to start the kettle boiling for hogs. being younger at the time it was usually my assignment to do the hack saw part. 6-700 lb hog was a long way from nose to tail; and it better be cut right on center;; the oldies were watching. best part was from the shot fired to meat on table we never lost sight of meat. 1/4 sections AFTER hanging in cooler  were brought to a butcher having his garage set up with all the proper clean machinery. cut as we requested and wrapper all. we double wrapped after. and the meat did taste different

[Joey Mack]

When our family had the house in Gray Maine, we raised Chickens turkey's and Pigs.. We always had fresh meat and eggs..  Yes we had a large garden too..  I miss those days.. 

[BOBWhite]

We never had the facilities to hang ours up in the cool. We would get a clean shot through the head then someone would run and quickly cut the jugular while the heart was still beating to get most of the blood out. We would hang it up using a bale bed or hoisted it up through the rafters of a shed to do the quartering. Definitely not professional butchers by any means but man it tastes good.

Haven't done hogs yet but my neighbor had one of those large hog processing pots. They seem close to impossible to find. 

 

[mowerman]

Nothing much to add here except everything is a fortune now in this country it’s disgusting. Good luck Joey fuel out on our highway. Dropped $.45 in the past couple of weeks. I don’t know what’s up with it because here in Reno Gasolina is a fortune and so is everything else Thanks oBiden Bob also haven’t had much time to get on here been putting in 14 hours a lot past few weeks…

[tjc transport]

make friends with a grain farmer, than offer to keep the deer destruction of crops down. the farmer will thank you, and you will get a freezer full of venison, which is much better than beef.

[JoeH]

https://maps.app.goo.gl/6ft3umgG2B33qheu6

 

McLaughlins grocer reviews sound good

[Joey Mack]

I would be very surprised if it is a good place to buy meats..  It's in ''The Hood''..  I guess I could stop in to see what they have..  I do have a permit to carry a handgun..    Thanks JoeH.....    Jojo

[other dog]

On 11/4/2023 at 1:07 AM, BOBWhite said:

We never had the facilities to hang ours up in the cool. We would get a clean shot through the head then someone would run and quickly cut the jugular while the heart was still beating to get most of the blood out. We would hang it up using a bale bed or hoisted it up through the rafters of a shed to do the quartering. Definitely not professional butchers by any means but man it tastes good.

Haven't done hogs yet but my neighbor had one of those large hog processing pots. They seem close to impossible to find. 

 

We raised and killed hogs too when I was a yungin'...that was many years ago. We had the scalding tank , but I don't remember what is was made from. Made a wood fire under it to heat the water, and my grandfather would run his fingers through it periodically and say when it was right- it had to be hot enough, but it couldn't be too hot. My uncle always had the job of shooting the hog, used a .22 short. Hit it in the right spot and it just dropped. Done. Right then. Then the butcher knife came out, then in the scalding tank. Me and my brothers helped with the scraping but not cutting the meat up. We made lard out of the fat too, and had real cracklings out of that process, and real pork skins. My mother made some fantastic cracklin bistits too! We had a smoke house, salt box, cured our own hams, the whole deal.

[Joey Mack]

Now That's what i'm talkin' bout..  I wish I was raised that way..   We dont have deer processors in my area, and deer are everywhere..  I would love to fill my freezer. 

one of the 25 year old guy i work with pays $10,000.00 a year to hunt in Ohio and Illinois and N.C.  ( I mean His Daddy)..  anyway, It's not easy here for me to hunt on Game lands..  The land owners here, don't like Yankee's, so getting permission is a no-go..  

[mrsmackpaul]

When doing pigs we always used a old bath tub

Lay chains across the tub before the pig goes in so you can turn the okay with putting your hands in the water 

Also use the chains to rub the hair off the side facing down

68° C 154° F is the proper temp, thats what I was taught 

A little blow torch burns the remainder hair of easily 

Then to get the patches of brown or black pigmentation off the skin a nice round river rock that fills your palm rubbed on the skin removes all the pigmentation and leaves the skin white

I'm definitely getting to old to even know this stuff

I never light a fire underneath but warm the water beside were I working and bucket the water in to get the temp right

As Swishman say, but what I know

 

Happy butchering everyone 

 

Paul 

[mechohaulic]

1 hour ago, other dog said:

We raised and killed hogs too when I was a yungin'...that was many years ago. We had the scalding tank , but I don't remember what is was made from. Made a wood fire under it to heat the water, and my grandfather would run his fingers through it periodically and say when it was right- it had to be hot enough, but it couldn't be too hot. My uncle always had the job of shooting the hog, used a .22 short. Hit it in the right spot and it just dropped. Done. Right then. Then the butcher knife came out, then in the scalding tank. Me and my brothers helped with the scraping but not cutting the meat up. We made lard out of the fat too, and had real cracklings out of that process, and real pork skins. My mother made some fantastic cracklin bistits too! We had a smoke house, salt box, cured our own hams, the whole deal.

I have been shown to make an X  from one ear to opposing eye and same for other side. where the two imaginary lines cross  --BANG . we never dipped entire hog in CAST IRON  water pot. hog went on large table and BURLAP bags were placed on the hog with hot water poured on burlap. excessive hot water and skin turned . we used candle scrapper for hair removal. boy did I get my self in trouble one year when I had gloves on due to cold out door temp. old timer said "YOU NEVER WEAR GLOVES!! you will never get glove off in time if hand goes in boiling water tub. pull glove off and only thing will be my bones =no skin. so much knowledge the old timers had in such a simpler day. so much common sense is lost todays world.

[JoeH]

We bought a 1/4 cow last year and put it in a chest freezer. Was about $5/lb hanging weight, we dealt with the farmer who worked with a local butcher. Ground beef at the grocery store is cheaper, but where you save the money is on the roasts and steaks.  Local small butcher shops I expect could put you in touch with a local farmer, but maybe the butcher environment is a little different here in PA.

[mrsmackpaul]

Boiling scaleds the skin of the pig, just like your hand and makes a mess, cooks the skin and then you get no crackling, dunno if pork is worth eating without crackling

We only put about 6 inches of water at the most in the tub 

By the time you drop the pig the water goes up a bit

Dunno aboit making hams, some blokes do I never have

When doing cattle you need to pump the corn beef 

When making sausages out of deer we would use about 70% pork

A lot of dehydrated people when sausages are been made, makes for a interesting drive home 

It's more of a social engagement tjan a money saver, but great fun with mates

The start of the night the strings of sausages are very neat and even

End of the night the sausages are very custom to length and ability 

Old timers used to slit the throat when the pig was alive to collect the blood for black pudding, I don't get excited about black pudding and if I gotta knock something on the head I prefer it to be as quick and painless as possible 

With pigs and cattle, they are usually very tame like a pet as they have been hand reared for a month or more to grow them out 

All in all, pigs are a lot of fun to do, cattle are a lot of work and sheep are all done on the band saw 

If you haven't done one before you teally need to find someone that knows what they are doing and go and help them butcher some stock first

Get them help you, even if you give away a large portion of the beast

Encase anybody hasn't picked it up yet thru my ramblings 

A lot of people claim, hang on I'll do that in capital letters CLAIM THEY CAN BUTCHER A BEAST but very few can 

I am not even close to been a expert but have seen a lot of disasters 

Preparation is the key, and a lot of helpers

Take your time, buy some books on butchering and if you have a cool room, take your time 

First cattle I did I had no cool room and just hung the quarters under the tank stand and wrapped the in bed sheets that were wet and the wrapped them in shade cloth to keep the flies off

A bloody big job it turned out to be

We stacked it all into large freezers as we went

Found out later when it freezers, freezes it freezes in what ever shape it is and in a giant block

Lesson number 2, the work isnt done when the meat is in the freezer

Gotta empty out and restack it every week until it's fully frozen otherwise you will never get it out and the cook will go crook at you

Some people say leave meat to hamg for two weeks before butchering 

If you think about it some of your meat has been dead well over a month before it's fully frozen 

To me that's a quick way for a lot of people to get crook

Cryovac machines are a good help

Anyway I could ramble on for hours 

 

Paul

 

 

[davehummell]

I have done up god knows how many deer helped do up cows and pigs' chickens, rabbits, game birds, at my age I am happy to stop over to an old friend and buy meat out of his store. I haven't hunted in quite a few years, and I don't help out at the friend's farm anymore.

[Mean Green]

My father in law has a farm they board horses and he has some beef cows if he takes them to auction he don’t get any thing for them so he sends them off to the butcher then we will split it with one of my sister-in-law’s so we get half a beef for just the price of the butchering I have a big grinder and meat saw and he wants us to start doing it our selves but we don’t have anywhere to hang it or to store that much meat I have done a few deer but a whole cow seems a bit big for me don’t want to bite off more than I can chew lol

[tjc transport]

10 hours ago, davehummell said:

I have done up god knows how many deer helped do up cows and pigs' chickens, rabbits, game birds, at my age I am happy to stop over to an old friend and buy meat out of his store. I haven't hunted in quite a few years, and I don't help out at the friend's farm anymore.

same here. been about 13 years since i was out in the woods, after my knee went fubar. 

and we have not opened the butcher shop on the farm since my friends dad passed away 9 years ago. 

we used to do 5-6 pigs and a cow every year plus the 10 or so deer. now Billly only does 1 or 2 deer a year, so he does them in the barn instead of the butcher shop

[Joey Mack]

I was talking to a couple guys at work today..  They said that the local meat markets are not cheaper at all..  I guess I was hoping that I could buy fresh meat cheaper, and support a local farmer or business.. I really miss the prices of things from 3 years ago..  We were able to afford everyday items..  Of course what I just said is for a different thread here at BMT..  I greatly respect all of you that have been able to process your own meats..  I wish I was one..   Jojo

[mrsmackpaul]

I would suspect you could just buy the said beast and bring it home butch er it yourself 

Make a crate for the back of your little Chev or F truck (sorry cant remember witch you have now)

Or Google the "Good Life" tv series and watch a couple trying to live self sufficient in the U.K. back in the early 80s

A great comedy 

They grow their own and make their own everything from power to food

A good old series full of silliness 

 

Paul