An 1,800-pound steer does not put 1,800 pounds of beef in your freezer. One of ours put about 600.
Folks are always surprised by that. So here is where the rest went, and why it matters when you shop for a half or a quarter.
Live weight
That’s the steer on the scale before he goes to the processor. Ours weighed 1,800.
Hanging weight
At the processor, the hide, head, feet, blood, and insides come off, along with whatever is in his stomach. What’s left on the rail is the carcass. That’s hanging weight.
Ours hung at 1,180 pounds, about 66 percent. University of Tennessee Extension says most fed cattle hang at 60 to 64 percent of their live weight. A steer carrying more fat hangs higher.
Aging
Then the carcass hangs in the cooler and ages. UT Extension says a carcass is 70 to 75 percent water, and some of that dries out while it ages. The longer it ages, the more weight it gives up. Ours dry age 20 to 30 days.
Take-home weight
Then it gets cut. Bone comes out. Fat gets trimmed. Lean trimmings go into the ground beef. What came home vacuum sealed was about 600 pounds.
So 1,800 on the hoof. 1,180 on the rail. About 600 in the freezer.
That’s normal. UT Extension says less than half of a live animal’s weight ever comes home as meat. In their example, a 1,200-pound steer hangs at 750 pounds and gives about 500 pounds of trimmed, boneless beef.
Why fat matters
Here’s what most folks don’t know. The longer a steer is fed, the fatter he gets. That fat helps his hanging weight, but it comes right back off on the cutting table. So a steer fed longer has more money in him and gives back less meat for every pound he hangs. UT Extension says outside fat cuts the take-home more than anything else.
That’s why a lean steer can sell for less. He has less feed in him, and more of his carcass comes home as meat. USDA grades that too. Its yield grades run from 1 to 5, and the leanest carcass, with the most usable meat, gets a 1. What a lean steer gives up is marbling, the little flecks of fat inside the meat. Prime, Choice, and Select are graded mostly on marbling, so lean beef usually grades lower there. It’s a trade-off, and every cattleman picks his spot.
That shows up in what take-home beef costs per pound. A cheap price can look like a great deal, but you may be getting a lean animal that was never put on feed, with nothing in him but the grass he ate. Premium beef sometimes costs a premium price.
Why it matters when you buy
Some farms price bulk beef on hanging weight. Some price on take-home weight. Neither one is wrong, but they are not the same number. Know which one you’re looking at.
A hanging-weight price covers pounds that never reach your freezer: bone, fat, and the water that dries out while it ages. A take-home price is figured only on what you carry home.
How much of the hanging weight comes home depends on the animal and how long it ages. In UT’s example it was about two-thirds. Ours came home closer to half, because he carried more fat and dry aged for weeks. That’s exactly why it matters which weight you’re paying on. Ask, then do the math.
We price on take-home weight. The pounds on our bulk beef page are what go in your freezer.
Common questions
Why did your steer hang above UT’s range? He carried more fat. Fat adds to hanging weight, and much of it comes right back off on the cutting table.
Do bone-in cuts change the take-home? Yes. Bone-in steaks and roasts weigh more than boneless. You get more pounds, but some of those pounds are bone.
How much does a quarter weigh? About 130 to 150 pounds packaged. Here is every cut in a quarter.
This started as a post on our Facebook page. If you raise cattle, tell us there what yours hang and cut out at.
Now you know where the other 1,200 pounds went.
— Mitchell Family Farms
Sources: University of Tennessee Extension, “How Much Meat to Expect from a Beef Carcass,” PB 1822. USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, “Carcass Beef Grades and Standards”. Live, hanging, and take-home weights are from one of our own steers.
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