Submitted by wyluda t3_y46w8f in pittsburgh
I just heard that people buy half a cow (butchered) to have high quality meats in the deep freeze, and to save money. I’m very interested in this. Asking around it sounds like it’s a great idea, and you need a deep freeze. Does anyone have recommendations on where to purchase? Maybe Thoma meat?
Any suggestions or what have other people done?
That’s pretty hilarious.
I bought a whole cow about a month ago from Footprints Farm in Fayette. I got around 430lbs of meet for ~$3500. Grassfed, Salatin Style farming. Idk if its certified organic, but you pick up the cow at their farm, and there's no pesticides fertilizer or anything and they can walk the cow to the butcher like 1 mile away.
Anyways, it's amazing beef and it's a great way to support environmentally friendly, regenerative farming.
*$3500 was after I paid the butcher
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With a whole cow ~avg weight of 400lbs you are going to get roughly
Steaks (~1-1.5lb cuts):
20 sirloin
20 strip
20 ribeye
16 filet mignon
4 skirt
2 flank
Roasts:
16# sirloin tip
25# Rump
20# Chuck
12# Shoulder
Ground: 60#
Others:
20# short ribs
15# brisket
12# shank
4# oxtail
8# suet
20-30# of bone for soap making
The roasts, ground, and others will be in 2-5lb packs.
Didn’t know you could make soap with bones!
Had to ;)
I'm not op but I bought half a pig from Footprints a few months ago. They call you to arrange the cut sheet before taking it to the butcher
I don't, they did it all over the phone with me. about 160lbs of it was ground beef. They did grind up the liver with the stuff they made ground beef. I have probably 80 lbs of steaks (Strip, Ribeye, Filet, etc.)
I'm super happy with it. It's a custom butcher, you can get whatever cuts you want.
Environmentally friendly beef is an oxymoron
I believe it has been shown that grazing animals regenerate soil and help it absorb more carbon dioxide. The real issue is factory farms where the animals don’t graze
The reason beef farming never be sustainable is because the calories it takes to raise a cow to adulthood vs the calories that come off said cow. Dairy farming has a chance because cows will continue to produce milk and the milk can be made into many things.
I eat meat and am not the preacher of this philosophy but it’s a very interesting and partly why eastern cultures tend to be vegetarian.
While that can be a useful way to think about it, calories can come in more and less useful (to humans) forms. If livestock is grazing on things that are not useful to humans as a food source, it is a way to convert non useful calories to useful calories. It can also be thought of as a calorie store, like how cheese can be a longer lasting storage of milk calories.
Relatively speaking
slightly less of a disaster.
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If it was an ice storm, wasn’t it cold enough to move the meat outside?
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I was just about to say this. Winter time and my roof turns into a cooler
Try Espey's in Scottdale/Smithton. We've been buying from them for years. I'm pretty sure they are only open on Friday and Saturday, though they will answer the phone to take orders on other days.
Don't half a cow, man.
We did a 1/4 cow from Wrights Meat Market. We definitely ended up paying a little more than what you’d pay at the grocery store (on a per-pound basis), but the meat had much better taste, much lower fat content, and we received cuts of meat that we would not typically have bought otherwise. That allowed us to experiment with different cooking techniques/recipes. I would definitely do it again.
Milk House Meats, New Castle
Second this! We got a quarter cow earlier this year and I liked that we got to pick front or hind quarter for the cuts we liked more.
That's a huge difference, if you want to choose between "a lot of sausage" or something else.
What? Neither option included any sausage.
Have also used milkhouse a few times. Their operation is pretty seamless. I usually get a hind quarter because of the better cuts IMO and I supplement my ground meat with deer.
I miss their 1/3 of beef where you got some from the front and back.
Tom Friday Market on California Ave. Brighton Heights.
Off topic, but their bacon is insane.
Now, I have to go there tomorrow.
Freedom Farms in Valencia does beef and poultry shares!
We got a quarter from Freedom and it's been great. Grass fed, grass or grain finished, Good stuff.
One additional tip... Get an upright freezer. The chest freezers are a PITA and things down at the bottom get neglected forever.
I get a CSA from them, it’s great variety and totally worth the money. I pick it up at the Bloomfield market every Saturday during the season
Thoma Meat Market in Saxonburg definitely does this.
You can get meat straight from the farmer at the Co-Op or through Harvie Farms delivery.
We do this. Absolutely worth it.
We buy 1/2 cow from Thoma and split it with a friend. That way we just divide it all evenly and get a better selection of cuts than just buying the 1/4 cow. With a 1/2 you get a mix of roasts and steaks along with ground beef, but with the 1/4 cow it’s one or the other. We have been very happy with the price and the quality of Thoma.
We get a half cow every fall from a farmer outside of Butler. It's way better than anything I've found in the grocery store. It's a little pricey.
My boyfriend's family lives in Amish country and did this a few times. Which is how he was introduced to the horrors of beef tongue and badly cooked liver. Because (at least in Amish country) when they say you get half a cow, they really do mean half of everything.
Blackberry Meadows is doing pork shares this fall. Great small family farm and the quality of the bacon, sausages, chops is excellent. They also sell chickens and turkeys- blackberrymeadows.com - they also sell fruit and veggies from the USDA certified farm and deliver to farmers market for pick-up. They are in Mt Lebonon today, Squirrel Hill tomortow and East Liberty on Monday. You can buy small quantities if you do not want a share.
Their beef is delicious.
You might be able to find a local, small farmer, begin looking early in the year, January-March and the steer will be finished around September.
Pronio meat in Plum
I second Pronio's.
http://www.barberrylonghorncattle.com/Grass-fed-Beef
Barberry Farm in Sewickley
Don’t get me wrong. I love steak. I had some tonight, but don’t people feel shame publicly talking about it, knowing it is one of the huge contributors to suffering on earth via green house gas emissions. And how cows are more intelligent than many domestic dogs but getting slaughtered and factory farmed at a staggering rate?
No
no shame. I also don't care what other countries use for meat sources either, including if they eat dog.
if you don't feel shame at home why should you feel shame in public? i hope the cow you ate is revolting against your for being ungrateful.
cawsllyffant t1_iserl3b wrote
Ok. Unsolicited advice. Make sure they label the cuts. My mom did this back in the 70s and we got a freezer full on unlabeled packages.
One night, she grabbed what she thought was a stewing cut. The “meat” disappeared completely so she served it at soup.
It was not meat. It was liver. Liver soup. It was so gross that 1) the dogs wouldn’t eat it and 2) it passed into such family legend that the story was told to me no fewer than 3 times at her funeral. (My mom was known as a good cook, so it really stood out in people’s memory )