Home Grown Beef - Nose To Tail Eating

At the end of 2014 Freezer 2 finally went in the Freezer.  After all of the problems we had which you can read about here and here and finally coming up with a solution and sending her off back in October.  She has been processed and packed tightly into our freezers (and Hubby's parents freezer where we have stored some sausages and mince).

One of our freezers packed with beef.

All of the meat was vacuum packed and labeled for us with the cut of meat and the weight.  Some had a price on it (what the butcher would normally charge) but most didn't as we were paying a set price of $1.75 per kilo regardless of cut.

Now before you faint in disbelief at the price let me qualify that $1.75 per kilo is the cost we paid the butcher to process and pack the meat.  We paid $0.50 per kilo to the abattoir and $30 for having her picked up.  Then there is the cost of purchasing her in the first place and the cost of the hay and mineral supplements that she has consumed.  Once we totaled up all of the costs we worked out that our actual costs were just over $4.00 per kilo.

This is still very very cheap for grass fed beef where prime cuts like Eye Fillet retail for approx AUS $40 per kilo and cheaper cuts like good quality mince and chuck steak retail for approx AUS $8 per kilo.

In total Freezer 2 weighed in at 380 kg carcass weight which means the whole animal as it would hang in the butcher (no head, skin, intestines, feet etc).  This means you pay for all the weight of the bones, the organ meats (tounge, heart, liver, kidney,) and I also asked for all of the fat since I was paying for it.

We were really happy with the meat quality and it has been amazing eating so far.  The meat has really good marbling (the inter-muscular fat) and is tender and very tasty.

All the veins of fat in the beef  (marbling) means that when it cooks the fat slowly melts
out keeping the meat tender and juicy.  Plus you know that the fat is where the flavour is.

Because the meat is all vacuum packed we have been able to sell some of the meat to family and friends but when ever we ask them what cuts they would like they all reply "Some rump steak, mince and sausages".  
The mince and sausages are easy to offer up as there is plenty of them since they are made from off cuts and a mix of other cuts, but a cow has only 2 rumps (in terms of cuts of meat) and we paid a friend who helped us renovate with one of them.
This means we are having to educate people on the other cuts of beef they are not so familiar with and how to use them.

So What Do You Do With 380 Kilos Of Beef and Beef products?  

Well that is is too big of a question to answer here so I am going to do a series of posts to cover off how we like to use the different cuts and to encourage you to try cuts that are not only great value for money but extremely tasty too.

I am also going to share with you how we plan to use some of the other bits and pieces.

So what are the cuts of meat you are not sure what to do with?  Are there any cuts you love or avoid?