buying a cow or half

jcr16

Hubby and i were talking last night and somehow in our conversation the topic of buying a cow or half a cow came up. He feels this is the best value way to buy meat and said he is more than happy for me to do so. But i am wondering if anyone can give me some pointers as to how best to go about this.

Beef cuts we love are silverside/topside/steaks( all of them) mince etc. i have tried brisket couple times and i have a slow cooker so i'm not worried about cheaper cut's if they need longer to cook.

but how would a butcher give me the meat or can i ask for it to suit our requirments'.s Also i know this is a bit like how long is a piece of string. but whats the sort of price lb for £. and how much meat lb wise would half a cow be? as i've really no idea?

would the meat come in plastic bags and then i would need to use freezer bags to store it in ?

we generally have roast beef very sunday, also would have a mince,casserole ,pie type meal 2 or 3 times a week. so we do eat a fair bit . so this could be a great saving for us.

Any tips would be really helpful. as i don't wanna go into a butcher and ask and then be shocked at how big a cow is and it costing more than i'd ver imagine, lol.

We have a couple of fantastic butchers on the isle of wight and they supply you island cows. even tho we have no slaughter house ( although have heard there might be one coming ) here but it would be nice knowing it is a local cow.

thriftlady_2

As a guide my butcher's prices from his 'freezer list' are

130lb fore-quarter (the front half) £1.79 lb
65lb half fore-quarter £1.89lb

140lb hind-quarter (the back half) £2.99 lb
70lb half hind-quarter £3.13 lb

That's for local pastured beef- not organic.

The Well Hung Meat Company sell organic beef. A sixteenth of a bullock costs £135 and is shown here.

As for how it will be cut and wrapped just ask your butcher;)

tramps

Got 'given' a whole cow a few years back (OH repairs farm machinery and the farmer could not afford to pay us)
A whole cow is BIG apart from the joints there will be loads of mince/stewing steak depending on how you want it cutting - most buchers will cut as you like. Its coping with it afterwards - a whole cow even when jointed weights a lot!! more than a normal car will carry, know that now!
had to buy a second freezer a double up right one, the cow filled this and took up more space in the freezer i already had.
But the cow was lovely tasted realy nice took ages to get through - there 4 of us and i got the second freezer i always wanted only problem even though the cows all gone now i now still have 2 freezers full of food!!

Ches

I always used to buy a half hindquarter when the kids were all at home. This was about the largest amount I could reasonably cope with at a time and was the better cuts of meat that we preferred. Just discuss with the butcher how you want it cut up and don't forget to ask for the suet. If you render this down in a slow oven it makes the most incredible pastry.

nell2

Gracious me - I couldn't even begin to think about buying half a cow, let alone a whole one. I sometimes struggle to squeeze a piece of braising steak into my tiny freezer! Sounds like a good idea if you do have lots of storage though!