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  Andrew Fry And George, I would imagine imported beef could be used in large plants that specialize in ground beef products. Not sure if the combos that come in would be frozen. I have seen dry ice being added to combos before though

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  Leon Wildberger Andrew Fry I thought there were two, I don't remember the new name of it, do you?

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  Andrew Fry Not sure of a new name. I know cargill makes a similar product called finely textured beef, or FTB I believe, but they use a different process, and generally didn't have any uproar compared to BPI. They are the #1 ground beef producer in the world, so I'm sure they still use it

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  Andrew Fry http://www.cargill.com/.../cargill-finely.../index.jsp

  

  Cargill: News Center - Company Statements - Cargill - Finely Textured Beef

  CARGILL.COM

   

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  Andrew Fry Looks like the main difference is they use citric acid as an antimicrobial step instead of ammonia gas

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  Leon Wildberger http://www.npr.org/.../pink-slime-is-making-a-comeback-do...

  

  'Pink Slime' Is Making A Comeback. Do You Have A Beef With That?

  NPR.ORG|BY ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

   

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  Leon Wildberger Thanks Andrew for the link

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  Andrew Sapmaz We sell so much burger at our shop we have to tube grind. There is no way in hell I could keep up with demand. But our 80% is almost always trim

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  Andrew Sapmaz I always know to buy some when I hear the old man say "got some bob's burger comin at ya"

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  BrieAnna Lefort Trim only. Tube grind ... Yuck!

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  Thomas Grumbling Both

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  Molly Hansen Trim only

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  Sean Briffett What's tube ????

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  Andrew Fry Sean, it's the top pic in the original post. It's a boxed beef product where preground beef at specific ratios like 80/20 or 70/30 come in and you can either grind it again or even cut it from the tube to make quick patties

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  Sean Briffett Ah ! Cheers Andrew ... Now I see why people don't like it .... Can imagine water content would be an issue also

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  Arther Watts As far as block frozen beef. I cut up tons of it on the saw and mixed in to GB when I was at Food Dog. It mostly was from NZ. 60# block in a case.

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  Scott Thomas i grind the trimmings from our own cut from whole quarters

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  Andrew Fry Seems like it's easy to overgrind it easily Sean

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  Arther Watts The CAB 81/19 fine grind we got shrunk badly on the grill and yet had a big puddle of moisture/blood/ water/whatever in the bottom of the box. wink emoticon I suspect water or ice was added, it also popped, hissed, etc excessively on the grill. Water, ice etc will do that.

   

NOW IF ANY MEATCUTTERSCLUB MEMBER WAS TO TAKE THIS SURVEY FEEL FREE TO START REPLYING

We have 8 kinds of ground beef. All ground from our own trimmings. 

Chili , 80, 85, 90, 95, 1 kind of grass fed (we don't declare fat content on grass), 80% patties, 85% patties. We display fresh patties Fri-Sun all summer, but not fall/winter. We have our frozen patties available all year. 

We also do ground veal, lamb, and pork. All from our own trimmings. And 4 kinds of bulk pork sausage. We don't buy/sell any ground meat from outside the store except for 1 lb frozen ground bison (buffalo?) and that doesn't sell well. 

The fish/poultry dept (I'm meat dept) makes ground chicken, turkey breast and turkey thigh. That too is from our own meat. They buy cases of skinless boneless turkey thigh and chicken breast. The ground turkey breast is from our own turkeys that they cut for parts. I think we have frozen turkey patties made somewhere else. 

Well now its nice to see so many people sharing their thoughts about ground beef.  Why not! It represents more of our beef tonnage than anything else in our meat departments. I see that many are trying to have the best of both worlds but that is like cutting meat with a "double-edge knife". I will explain in a moment.

With all the comments about whether you use trim or pre-ground not one person, not one, mentioned the cost of their store made ground beef. Now why is that? I don't mean knowing the cost of pre-grinds, because all you have to do is check your invoice to see what you paid for it. Many things have changed since I ran a meat department and back in those days we made only store made ground beef. At the company I worked for you got your total gross profits and we never knew what made that gross profit up. Where did we make the most money, on  beef, pork, poultry, smoked meat, pre-packaged lunch meat or fish. Maybe today the G.P. can be broken out, I really don't know and if someone can shed some light on it I would very grateful.

Getting back to costing store made ground beef. Lets just stay with the beef category. Where are we making the most G.P. in beef?  If you look at the 4 primal cuts us old timers always said we make the most money on the chuck, next comes the round, and the rib and loin was a toss-up. The most labor you spend in your store on rail beef is going to be on the chuck especially if you are meeting the demands of your customers. Therefore are you making more G.P. on chucks than you are on ground beef? Or is it vice, versa. You only have so much labor in your departments so where do you put the labor, hopefully you put it where the profits are but how would you no that if you can't cost your ground beef!. Some of you said , you supplement with pre-ground because you can't keep up with the demand. That is totally understandable because with rail beef you have to stay balanced.

As for co-mingling pre-ground with shop trim you roll the dice. God forbid if there is a recall, you may be putting  your store in serious liability not being able to identify your raw materials and where they came from. You see having a 0157 problem is like getting flat tires. You an drive for 75,000 miles and never have a flat. But sooner or latter you will.  That's why you care a spare tire, heck you may never use it but its there. The  0157 bug is so small that 40,000 of them critters can fit on the tip of a needle. That's why it is so hard to detect them , and as long as cattle keep pooping on themselves 0157 will be out there.

Coalcracker wrote:

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...............With all the comments about whether you use trim or pre-ground not one person, not one, mentioned the cost of their store made ground beef. Now why is that?......................

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  It wasn't part of the question:

We use table trim for chuck and round. unless running it on sale then we have to use tubes. but remember the days of the old box beef.  the cattle pack and 3 piece chucks. that how i got the nick name toby. i was the slave that leaned out all the boning carts after i cleaned up as a 16 yr old kid . now they can crush cardboard untill they are 18

-- Edited by toby (the meat slave) on Tuesday 25th of August 2015 07:06:19 AM

cprbbq wrote:

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Bench trim.
Veal we have box trim plus what we trim from tops, Not a big seller for us.


Extra question... How many times through the grinder do you go/ how long do you let blend?

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 NO TUBES:

pork once, veal and lamb twice, beef chili grind once, most kinds of fine ground beef twice, 95% beef 3 times just to make it look leaner. Turkey breast once, turkey thigh twice, chicken breast once. Our Biro grinder doesn't have a mixer or foot switch. We do mix a little by hand. 

On my days off, I sometimes moonlight at stores that use tubes. I only grind the tube meat one more time. These stores have Hobart's with mixers.  I usually don't mix the tube meat. If I do, it's only while looking for trays to put it in. 

usually bench trim...unless we run low then we use 10lb tubes of 73/27

This is the exact model fat tester that we used.  We put out three different types of ground beef: 80, 85, and 90% lean ground beef.  We were required to test every grind and log the results.  Failure to do so, if you were caught, could lead to termination, union contract or not.  We were only allowed to make the 90% lean ground sirloin out of peeled knuckles. We were required to grind fresh batches every 4 hours and reduce what was still in the case after 4 hours. Failure to do so, or re-grinding what was in the case, if caught, led to termination. We were also required to break down and sanitize the grinder and blender/grinder, after every batch. Failure to do so, if caught, =termination. This was tough but I educated my crew that while they could yell at me for an empty case, they could only terminate us for violating policy, so we followed policy. I knew several meat managers who were terminated for these violations.  While this was very tough, I have to admit it also made me do a better job.

apcowboy wrote:

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• Maine Meatman who uses one of these - to test for lean/fat % from bench/primal trimmings? (you need one if you advertise the lean % and you use primal trimmings) you cook a sample of burger and the juice drips in the test tube, then you gauge the amount of fat floating on top

  

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  Maine Meatman "tube burger" is usually 10lb tubes that are pre-determined lean/fat % , many supermarkets use these for trace-ability and you dont have to test the batches, and the coarse grinds go thru the grinder twice,,, there is also "fine grinds" that you dont have to grind at all

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  Maine Meatman most independent stores in maine do not use tube burger,,,,comes from bench trimmings fresh

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  Sterlin Walter Feeney Certified angus ground fresh daily

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  Ron Teigen Jr. Maine Meatman we used to use one of those back in the 80s in the packing house I worked. we did a lot of wholesale burger and patties and had an inspector full time that covered both family owned plants in our small town. It was a pain in the butt.

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  David Gulisano We don't. Its all prepacked. Very sad.

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  Maine Meatman david,,, im sure its not your choice, some chains do this to cover there ass,,,(traceability), if an e-coli illness hits the paprs,,it hurts many stores (and big bucks) however, it IS sad because burger is the anchor...See More

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  George Wolfer Thanks Joe, A while back one of our members in academia led me to believe that after the U.S. beef shortage took hold, starting in 2011 fast-food burger chains started using imported grass-finished beef blocks, and such blocks began being utilized as ...See More

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  Keith Colborn Both

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  Leon Wildberger George Wolfer After the pink slime deal a lot of bull meat did come in to take it's place but they back to using pink slime but under another name now

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  Ricardo Adelino Duran Both

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  Andrew Fry Leon, LFTB is nowhere near the amount it once was. BPI was running 4 or 5 plants 5 days a week. Now they're down to 1 plant running 2 or 3 days a week.

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