About Us
Location:
Fall Creek, Oregon
Contact:
(541) 746-8329
Email
Owners:
• Dr. Martha DeWees, Veterinarian,• Jonny Watson
Purpose:
To provide the highest quality grass-fed beef available without paying a premium price.
Links:
Welcome to High Meadow Farm!
Meat Cutting Guide for Farm Raised Beef
Our goal is to help you cut this beef in a manner that will work in with your lifestyle and cooking habits. Although it is enticing to try new and different cuts of beef, we don't want you to end up with unused cuts or too much of one type of cut that is little used.
Which cuts of meat do you typically buy, eat and like?
Do you use roasts or prefer mostly steaks?
Do you use a lot of ground beef?
The more lean cuts put into ground beef, the leaner and better the ground beef. If you put only trimmings into ground beef, it may be fatter than you like. We prefer 10% fat.
Do you like to quick cook meat and serve it medium to medium rare (steaks, burger, meatloaf) or do you prefer well-done meat (pot roasts and stews).
Do you like to prepare and cook ribs, soups or stews?
Do you prefer boneless or bone in steaks and roasts?
Cuts of beef range from succulent tender cuts like tenderloin to the tougher chuck and bottom round.
Butchers will not trim the fat from lower cuts in making stew meat. This makes trimming stew meat tedious. If you want stew meat, request chuck roasts or bottom round or sirloin tip in 3 to 4 pound packages. These can be thawed, trimmed and cut into appropriate size pieces.
There are some parts that you need to request or you may not get them. (If you do not want them, we can use all but the bones for our dogs.)
Liver
Heart
Oxtail - great braised or for oxtail soup
Tongue - great for hash and some folks like to use in sandwiches or tacos.
Hanging tender - if not requested will usually be put into burger.
Soup bones - if you want bones for dogs, use only the joint bones (spongy); trim completely of all fat and cook to remove the marrow fat before giving them to dogs. Shank and steak bones are very hard and will break dog's teeth. The fat can make them ill. (Sorry, I can't help it. I'm a vet.)
Steaks
Do you like all steaks or do you prefer only the most tender, juicy steaks? The less tender cuts can be swissed to increase tenderness. Fewer steaks mean more ground beef of a higher quality.
Beef Jerky
Do you want jerky? Family Tradition Meats makes superb jerky - plain, black pepper teriyaki and red pepper. There is additional cost above the cutting and wrapping charges that comes to about $4.00 per pound for the finished product. Jerky needs to be refrigerated or frozen if not consumed within a few weeks. Jerky requires very lean meat. We usually use bottom round or sirloin tip.
Once you have decided what you want you will need to give cutting instructions to the butcher. Some of the questions he will ask are:
Roasts how big? For 4 or 8 people? Small roasts are about 3 to 4 pounds while large roasts are about 7 to 8 pounds.
Steaks - package for 2 or more people? They will usually put 2 steaks in each package. If you want only one steak per package, it will cost extra and take more room in your freezer.
Do you want the bone in or boneless? Bones take more room in the freezer. Bones provide more protection for the meat and require less handling of the meat before you eat it.
Rear Quarter
Rump Roast 1 large or 2 small roasts. We recommend boneless.
Sirloin: best for steaks
Loin: Bone In or Boneless
T-Bone or New York
Porterhouse= New York + Tenderloin
Sirloin Tip - (no relationship to sirloin), tends to be tougher and lean - burger or jerky
Round
Top Round - tougher steaks/loin or sirloin - burger or jerky
Bottom Round - toughest - jerky, ground beef
Eye of the Round = 2 small roasts - very lean, a bit tough but good for sandwiches.
Flank - Unless requested this will go into ground beef - can be used as steak, or for stroganoff or Chinese meals.
Front Quarter
Rib you can have either roast of steaks or some of both. If you want both, the best steaks come from the small end. If you use the small end for steaks, you will not have a prime rib roast. You can have a rib roast but it will be from the big end and have a different appearance. Most people prefer the bone in but it can be deboned.
Steaks
Small-End Rib Steaks: Bone-In or Boneless
Rib Steak or Delmonico Steak
Roasts
Number of people and number of ribs
Small end = Prime Rib
Rib bones - if you want to prepare beef ribs you will need to decide how many per package.
Chuck provides a large amount of beef.
You can request to have it boned and trimmed of most of the fat and put it into burger.
You can have chuck roasts that are best for pot-roasting or stew meat.
We now prefer Value Cuts that come from the Chuck that has been deboned, defatted and all the grsitle and fascia removed. This breaks the Chuck into small steks and roasts such as Flat Iron Steaks Petite Roast that are tender and flavorful.
Brisket - great for corned beef if you know how and have the time. Ask them to trim it lean.
Ground Beef or hamburger - the burger will be very lean = 10% fat. We prefer that all fat be trimmed in preparation for ground beef and that if fat needs to be added to bring it up to10%, request the butcher add in kidney knob which is the hardest, whitest fat.
Take your time with your cutting order. Ask for clarification if you don't understand. Be sure you have covered all the cuts that are important to you.
