I never had the chance to cut up a Carcess but a pig twice.. lol, in 1989 they was calling me a Box cutter for the meat by then was coming in boxes..
BUT to cutting up a 1/4 or side of beef. first cuts Yeah I use a saw over a hand saw.. I heard of those pull-in blades , where the saw blade is turned - tilled top end to you if behind the the cutting side of blade. so it grab more and help pull the meat into it. I heard a Very bad story over that once when i started, man was alone being pulled in by his tie. but that would happen even on a up=right saw.
But after the main cut done on back bone, shank and so on heavy bones, One alway should use a knife over bone saw blades. Now there in boneless blades.
I have cut a full round with knife, note,, after bone out. LoL all !/4 inch thick. Also that was in my hey days. now ask me that one NOW, if I had a choice today, and bone out ?
Here in the DFW area, I have NOT seen a full Round cut in Years. I wounder Why ? lol
Now I had Lamb Chop and Veal loins , many times. There I use Knife down to the back bone. After that then back to the Saw to cut back bone. But not the meat on the saw.
I always break down by hand,I not keen on hacking any meat, at the end of the day I like to use my skill that has taken me 37+years to learn. All carcase meat is handled with the respect it deserves and cut accordingly.
I break everything by knife and handsaw on the rail and/or table. I don't like putting huge pieces on the band saw. Here in California, we remove the cross rib (shoulder clod, minus flat iron) first and sell it boneless. By that I mean, we don't cut O Bone roasts like they do or used to do on the East Coast.
We "cheat" a little and make 4 ribs in the chuck and 8 in the rib. It's nearly impossible to cut through the blade bone at that point with a knife. I'd prefer a 5 bone chuck that you can knife through all the way to the back bone and then pull the X rib. It's easier to handle that way. However, we're not supposed to do it it that way. It's messy the try to cut the blade bone at the 4th rib while the forequarter is on the rail. So after removing the X rib, brisket, and neck meat, I remove it from the rail, place it on the table. I cut the first 5 ribs with a hand saw, and then separate the chuck from the rib with both, a hand saw and a knife (at 4th rib). The only part I break on the band saw is the "fan". I cut through the 8 ribs to separate the rib from the plate on the power saw.
Hind 1/4 is broken on the rail, but I put the loin (head loin and short loin together) on the table and separate loin from head loin with both knife and hand saw. Some guys just buzz it on the saw. I like to knife it. I guess it doesn't matter. Buzzing is faster, knifing is cleaner. Round is broken on the rail: tip, top, bottom.
I haven't worked hanging meat in a very long time, not since 1980. Back then, yes we would break hind quarters with a knife and use a hand saw to take the rib off a forequarter. For hinds, we would knife the loin off the round all the way, through the joint. Once the rounds were broken down, and the chucks we would break down kosher style (as opposed to square cut) we would cut loins on the saw for the most part. We sold less boneless strips than bone in and would buy most of our filets boneless cryovac even then. It;s just a fact that it's more profitable to get a steak price for that bone! Also more profitable to just make boneless sirloin steaks out of the center cuts with just a tiny round bone. The same with ribs, we used the saw to take the short ribs and chine off, then knifed the individual rib steaks.
For rounds we broke them down completely boneless except for the shin which we did cut on the saw. I have seen whole rounds sliced on the saw with the leg bone in the center but we never did it. I never saw any value for the customer in such a cut. Perhaps if you are feeding Genghis Khan's army that humongous slice might be practical but sure not very appetizing in my opinion.
