“Cutting Meat, Meat Cutters Exchange and local places to buy your meat”

[thomasyoung]

Thanks for your compliment DaveNH!
Thomas

 

[thomasyoung]

Hello scubadoo97,
I thank you for your kind words and providing us with that great link!

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[thomasyoung]

Hello ShooterRick,
Thanks for the suggestion of placing this topic here and for your support too. I hope that it warrants its own place in the topic section here at SMF- Smoking Meat Forum!!

Thomas

 

[pops6927]

Just cut the dead meat, not the live meat! (lost a few parts of fingers over the years, a few stray Cimeters into knees and thighs, etc. lol!).

Pops §§

 

[thomasyoung]

Hey Pops,
I know exactly what you mean when you say "Just cut the dead meat, not the live meat!". I have a few scars myself on my hands and remember what I was doing at looking at each scar. I was lucky that they were all in my fingers and not into any other body parts!

By the way how do you like the meat grinder and sausage stuffer you have??

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[shooterrick]

I am sure moderators are watching this thread. If enough interest is displayed by the membership in meat cutting I am sure it will find a home here. Good luck and good smokes
Rick

 

[chisoxjim]

I have 3 places I can recommend for folks in the CHicagoland area for picking up meat, allowing you to stay away from the mega chain markets, and their meat.

#1
Peoria Packing
1300 W. Lake
Chicago, IL.

pork is there thing, spares, BB ribs, rib tips, shoulders, butts, sides of pork, whole hogs, heads, snouts, feet, etc. Beef and chicken alos offered, but their strength is pork for sure.

# 2
Polancics Meat Market
412 W. Norris
Ottawa, IL.

Beef, they have the best beef of any place I have been to. Steaks cut to order, prime beef available.

#3
Brookhaven Markets
locations in Burr Ridge, Darien, and Mokena

a newer find for me, I go to the darien location on my home on Fridays, and like their trimmed spares, bone in pork loins, bb ribs, beef roasts, and chickens.

 

[erain]

never did it for money but been around it since a child. my father in law turned out to be a butcher by trade. go figure. i remember my dad had this little book with all the cuts. probably a 1920's edition of the meat buyers guide lol. but he was a stickler on how to exact cut up the beef and the hogs.

by the way i know the ribeye is a devil of a steak but not demonical. how about delmonico.

this could be a very interesting thread.

 

[wanbli]

When I worked in the grocery business I hung out with the meat cutters. An old timer told me instead of buying "rib eye" steaks most butchers and cutters took "chuck eyes". He said the only thing seperating the chuck and rib sections was a fine line of fat/gristle and they cost half of the price of rib eyes, I have been buying them ever since. If you live in an area that has farms raising beef cattle, there should be a local meat processor. We have one here that not only gets beef and pork but buffalo and other farm raised "game animals". You can order custom cuts, half a beef uncut, whole hogs etc... And the pricing is better than the stores charge. Or you can order a 1/4, 1/2 or whole animal cut/ground to your specifications. Ours will even do sausages and hot dogs to your specs. You can even find organically raised/feed critters through him. It's all locally grown, unfrozen and aged before being sold. Awesome meats and store bought does not compare. They also have a regular meat counter that you can purchase smaller amounts out of instead of buying the 1/4 to whole animal. It's priced a little higher than buying "bulk" but is every bit as fresh as the bulk purchased meat.

 

[thomasyoung]

Hello Erain,
Thanks for pointing me out to my spelling error. Correction has been made! Thanks,
Thomas

 

[pops6927]

Good, very good for the amounts I do (5-20lbs at a time). If I were continually processing half or whole hogs or quarters of beef, I'd want to go with a 25-40 lb. motorized stuffer, a 40lb. or more mixer and the 1¾ hp. grinder or larger; but I'm just processing for the home for my wife and I and occasionally for our two sons. I am thinking about acquiring the patty maker for sausage patties tho; wife prefers them pattied vs. linked (don't think she can bear to bite into the intestinal lining of Ba Ba Black Sheep... lol!).

Pops §§

 

[morkdach]

very interesting thread as i know absolutly nothing about meat cutting but wish i did.
thanks Thomas

 

[alx]

Great Idea.It could point some of the same questions to a place with pictures and descriptions...

Always nice to have a place to look for meat supply if people are unfamiliar with an area etc..

 

[erain]

just out of curiousity... how many here do there own home processing??? have a meat saw etc??? i dont mean a little sausage or buying a whole primal cut and taking it down by hand. but buying beef by the quarter minimum or pork by the halves or whole, big game processing... who is really into it???

 

[oneshot]

If you're counting butchering deer, I do. My taxidermist friend is a retired butcher and we do everything from shooting them, to steaks, roasts and grind. Due to Chronic Wasting Disease we do not cut the bones with a saw but rather bone everything out to avoid any possilbe contamination.

For the record, I also agree that this is a fantastic idea and should have it's own spot. So many good questions and answers. And many thanks to our butcher friends for the valuable knowledge that they are sharing.

 

[thomasyoung]

Thanks ALX, I plan on trying to expand on the many kinds of cuts of meat from each section of the cattle. I'm hoping that SMF makes it own place in the menu for this topic! I also would like to know now more then ever since I'm going full guns ahead with Smoking Meat where to get my meat in my area or close by. Also it would help other smokers here to know where to go for their meat other then the grocery chains!
Thanks again,
Thomas

 

[thomasyoung]

Hi Erain,
Well I did at one time. In Michigan and I think it was the same all over the country too. They made us get rid of using wood sawdust on the floors and get rid of the wooden butcher block tables. They were just going to throw them into the garbage! So I took a large butcher block table complete with wooden shelf’s to hold the different sizes of meat trays. I put it into my garage to go along with my Biro Meat saw, Hobart Meat Grinder and my hand meat saw. I had the whole setup in my garage to use during deer hunting season. I had some meat hooks that I used to hang deer with and made this rail from the garage to the outside to take the hide off the deer. It was a sweet setup.

Then there came a time that I was in the mist of a divorce and the ex had a Garage sale without my knowledge. One day I had a complete setup and then it was gone. That was the day that I came home from work and found some guy walking out with my Lazyboy chair! I asked him what the H*## he was doing with my chair and he told me that he just bought it. She did one heck of a number on me. All that the judge told her was not to do it again. No problem for her, she did such a great job the first time there was hardly anything left that belonged to me. I guess when I got married I should have only gotten the 5 year license.

Where I live now there’s not much of a call for it to use for wild game. Too dang hot too! I would like to get my hands on a good meat grinder and sausage stuffer though. Further down the road I like to get a large deep freeze to hold all of my cuts. If I had that I probably would like to get my hands on a meat saw made by Biro, or Hobart and Butcher Boy!

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[thomasyoung]

Hello Oneshot,
Thanks, in looking at everything that this website provides it's great. I did feel the need that there should be a section in Meat Cutting, Meat Cutters talking to the members here and giving their expertise and a list of Meat Plants where the members can get their meat at whole sale prices! I’m hoping that with the interest that has been given here is a good indication for them to make it own place in the main menu!
Thanks,
Thomas

 

[pops6927]

As it is now, we have different sections for different meats; i.e. Beef, Pork, Chicken, and so on, and meat-related questions and information is posted into each section as requested and needed. I make quite a few posts myself. In creating one section for all meats separate from the catagories could get confusing, esp. for newcomers and those unfamiliar with different cuts from different animals, jumbling a post on lamb breast right after chicken breast and short ribs beef then spare ribs pork, etc.

However, I could see within each section having a Sticky concerning meat-related information, such as "Beef Cuts", "Pork Cuts", Poultry Cuts", etc., then in General Discussion have a sticky for "Meat Wholesalers/Retailers", with each post's subject line has to include the city/state for search purposes; that way if you live in Denver Colorado you can pull up all posts for that city or for that state, etc. FYI, Stickys stay at the top and don't move down the listings like regular threads, so they're there all the time and accessible.

Pops §§

 

[pops6927]

I have the ability and the basic tools necessary to be able to process a quarter of beef, a hog, a deer, etc. with owning a knife and a hand saw, grinder and stuffer, just don't have the need to do so. Don't hunt and with just me and momma and a over-top freezer section, no room for a quarter or half an animal. What with meat sales in several different retailers, not much savings either.

There's probably relatively few who have need for meat-cutting knowledge for practical use in their own lives, but can benefit by knowing where each cut comes from for a broader understanding of animal carcasses and how to cook them. The most basic relative knowledge is understanding what that particular muscle group does. For example, a leg supports the animal and is used constantly. The backbone is uses relatively little when the animal stands on all fours. The shoulders are used more than the belly, the legs more than the shoulders, etc. etc. just like us in the human body. Males are more sinewy than females in most cases (women bodybuilders are a good exception!) - likewise tougher, stronger muscle groups. Age plays a factor, such as a young tom turkey vs. an old hen (I'd much rather have an 16lb. tom than a 16lb. hen for Thanksgiving dinner!). How the muscle is used, it's age, it's chemistry (testosterone), etc. all play an important part on knowing how tender or tough it's going to be and the right cooking method to get the best FAT yield out of it (Flavor And Tenderness). Why do we low-and-slow a brisket but high-heat grill a NY Strip? Brisket comes from the underarm of the fore of the animal supporting a majority of the animal's weight whereas a NY strip comes from the backbone area that provides little support, that muscle is not weight-bearing. And so on.

A sticky on 'Cuts' in each section would do well to help inform and enlighten members of these differences I would think.