many of you older cutters will remember bull meat or shank meat that we use to cut up to lean trimming with.
with the " pink slime " out cry do you think we may go back to it, the reason I ask this question is from reading a press release this morning.
Processors already use most or all domestic cow meat as a lean source, which means there basically is no more available. Thus, they’ll have to turn to overseas suppliers. Australian range beef and New Zealand dairy cow beef, for example, offer lean product similar to that of U.S. cow beef. Importing product is a more expensive option than LFTB, but a more affordable alternative than grinding whole muscles.
“Because LFTB is recovery of lean from fatty trim, it will be cheaper than virtually any direct lean product, foreign or domestic,” he said. “Shipping adds to [the cost], but even then imported lean delivered here is cheaper than grinding whole muscles from animals that we have already paid to feed as fed cattle.”
According to my production manual: Foreshank can legitimately be added to ground-chuck. Hind-shank for ground-round the same. And, knuckle is considered ground-sirloin.
For the record.... shanks are one of my top three favorite cuts of beef.
We can look at the bright-side... this should spike demand for growing beef in this country. Unfortunately, it came at the cost of hundreds of men and women losing their jobs.
i still get bull meat occassionally when i am trying to run a cheap ground beef sale. It will always come in frozen cases. I'll hack it on the saw first then let it thaw in luggers. Some of us nick named it Bugger Meat. I told them don't ever let a customer hear you call it that.
I use it all the time. Have for 20+ years. You can get no better looking burger than bull meat ground while still a little frozen. Australian is the best, New Zealand tends to be inconsistent(sometimes fatty), and South American seems to be a little pale. Using bull meat is a great margin builder, as you can price your burger very competively, and use up much of your fat.
Haven't used that stuff in quite a while it sure was lean and yes it did have quite a bright bloom if it was a little frosty when you ground it. The downsides as I remember were a lot of bloody pkgs in the morn and wasn't it exceptionally green in the middle more so than grinding fresh trim? Can't see us going back to that but who knows??? Never say never!
A company I worked for in 1982 used bull meat every day for their grind. It was 60 lb cases (approx) and as Dan Dan the meat man said, they didn't stack well. Boneless bull meat frozen in bulging boxes. I think it was from New Zealand. It was part of the night person's job to slice it on the saw and leave it out to thaw. I think we used at least one per day, sometimes two. By 1984, they stopped buying the bull meat.
I never got to do this, but another local company got bull carcass beef and the night man had to bone the entire bull. I don't know how many they did in a week. I understand bull meat is difficult to bone (relatively speaking).
We use it, but lately what was ordered in was no where near the 90-95% lean that was claimed to be. We have just been freezing our own, by taking clods and trimming them up....A little cheaper to do it that way.
We been using it for years now. Our supplier gets in the 90% shank, 80% shank. Our other supplier has the 85% chuck meat and 95% bull meat. I'll get out in the morning what I need to grind for the day. Let it thaw just a bit and chip it up for grinding. Holds up good for me better than ready grind. I get a lot of 90% Oakey brand from Australia and 85% chuck from New Zealand. One of my suppliers did have some 90% American bull meat but half of the time it had way too much fat in it. I had one box that when I opened it, 3/4 of it was pure fat.
According to my production manual: Foreshank can legitimately be added to ground-chuck. Hind-shank for ground-round the same. And, knuckle is considered ground-sirloin.........................................
I never understood how we can use knuckle for "ground sirloin". Sure it's called "sirloin tip" but I don't consider it sirloin. I think ground sirloin should be from the area between the round and the short loin. Also, as I posted here before, I worked at a place that sold Certified Angus ground round and we were only allowed to use CAB knuckles for our CAB ground round. So which it it? Is a knuckle from the round, or from the sirloin?
if you ever broke a hind down with a knife its part of the round but an extension of the sirloin.thats why when you buy a 2 pc round you get a knuckel.
if you ever broke a hind down with a knife its part of the round but an extension of the sirloin.thats why when you buy a 2 pc round you get a knuckel.
I think it would be more accurate to say the tiny piece of ball tip in the sirloin is an extension of the round. That's why they don't sell two piece sirloins with a knuckle and a top sirloin.
