Butchering a Cow, Beef Cuts and Processing

Butchering a Cow, Beef Cuts and Processing


Brisket is not the only Beef Cut you can BBQ. All of it is fair game. Knowing the cuts is important to knowing your options.


Butchering a Cow, Beef Cuts and Processing

Butchering a Cow, Beef Cuts and Processing

butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or do any combination of these three tasks.[1] They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments. A butcher may be employed by supermarkets,grocery storesbutcher shops and fish markets or may be self-employed.[2]

An ancient trade, whose duties may date back to the domestication of livestock, butchers formed guilds in England as far back as 1272.[3] Today, many jurisdictions offer trade certifications for butchers. Some areas expect a three-year apprenticeship followed by the option of becoming a master butcher.[4][5]


Primary butchery in a meat packing plant, 1873

Butchery is a traditional work. In the industrialized world, slaughterhouses use butchers to slaughter the animals, performing one or a few of the steps repeatedly as specialists on a semiautomated disassembly line. The steps include stunning (rendering the animal incapacitated), exsanguination (severing the carotid or brachial arteries to facilitate blood removal), skinning (removing the hide or pelt) or scalding and dehairing (pork), evisceration (removing the viscera) and splitting (dividing the carcass in half longitudinally).

After the carcasses are chilled (unless “hot-boned”), primary butchery consists of selecting carcasses, sides, or quarters from which primal cuts can be produced with the minimum of wastage; separating the primal cuts from the carcasses using the appropriate tools and equipment; trimming primal cuts and preparing them for secondary butchery or sale; and storing cut meats. Secondary butchery involves boning and trimming primal cuts in preparation for sale. Historically, primary and secondary butchery were performed in the same establishment, but the advent of methods of preservation and low cost transportation has largely separated them.

In the rest of the world, it is common for butchers to perform many or all of the butcher’s duties. Where refrigeration is less common, these skills are required to sell the meat of slaughtered animals.

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Butcher shop[edit]

Boucherie du Bac, 82 Rue du Bac,Paris.

A butcher at work in Syria

Some butchers sell their goods in specialized stores, commonly termed a butcher shop (American English), butchery (South African English) or butcher’s shop (British English). Butchers at a butcher shop may perform primary butchery, but will typically perform secondary butchery to prepare fresh cuts of meat for sale. These shops may also sell related products, such as food preparation supplies, baked goods and grocery items. Butcher shops can have a wider variety of animal types, meat cuts and quality of cuts. Additionally, butcher shops may focus on a particular culture, or nationality, of meat production. Some butcher shops, termed “meat delis”, may also include a delicatessen.[6]

In the United States and Canada, butcher shops are becoming less common because of the increasing popularity of supermarkets. Supermarkets employ butchers for secondary butchery, but in the United States even that role is diminished with the advent of “case-ready” meat, where the product is packaged for retail sale at the packinghouse or specialized central processing plants.

Primal cut[edit]

See also: Cut of beefCut of lamb, and Cut of pork

A primal cut is a piece of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering. Different countries and cultures make these cuts in different ways, and primal cuts also differ between type of carcass. The British, American and French primal cuts all differ in some respects. A notable example isfatback, which in Europe is an important primal cut of pork, but in North America is regarded as trimmings to be used in sausage or rendered into lard. The primal cuts may be sold complete or cut further.

(The quite distinct term “prime cut” is sometimes used to describe cuts considered to be of better quality; for example the USDA uses a beef grading system ranging from “prime” to “canner”.[7])

Cuts of beef are first divided into primal cuts, pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering. These are basic sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are cut. The term “primal cut” is quite different from “prime cut”, used to characterise cuts considered to be of higher quality. Since the animal’s legs and neck muscles do the most work, they are the toughest; the meat becomes more tender as distance from hoof and horn increases. Different countries and cuisines have different cuts and names, and sometimes use the same name for a different cut; e.g., the cut described as “brisket” in the US is from a significantly different part of the carcass than British brisket.

The American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote in the American Anthropological Journal of the American Anthropological Association, “cultures that divide and cut beef specifically to consume are the Koreans and the Bodi tribe in East Africa. The French and English make 35 differentiations to the beef cuts, 51 cuts for the Bodi tribe, while the Koreans differentiate beef cuts into a staggering 120 different parts.”[citation needed]

American cuts[edit]



American cuts of beef

The following is a list of the American primal cuts (in boldface), and cuts derived from them. Beef carcasses are split along the axis of symmetry into “halves”, then across into front and back “quarters” (forequarters and hindquarters). Canada uses identical cut names (and numbering) as the U.S.[1]

Forequarter cuts[edit]

  • The chuck is the source of bone-in chuck steaks and roasts (arm or blade), and boneless clod steaks and roasts, most commonly. The trimmings and some whole boneless chucks are ground for hamburgers.
  • The rib contains part of the short ribs, the prime rib and rib eye steaks.
  • Brisket, primarily used for barbecue, corned beef or pastrami.
  • The plate is the other source of short ribs, used for pot roasting, and the outside skirt steak, which is used forfajitas. The remainder is usually ground, as it is typically a cheap, tough, and fatty meat.

Hindquarter cuts[edit]

  • The loin has two subprimals, or three if boneless:The round contains lean, moderately tough, lower fat (less marbling) cuts, which require moist or rare cooking. Some representative cuts are round steak, eye of round, top round, and bottom round steaks and roasts.
  • The flank is used mostly for grinding, except for the long and flat flank steak, best known for use in London broil, and the inside skirt steak, also used for fajitas. Flank steaks were once one of the most affordable steaks, because they are substantially tougher than the more desirable loin and rib steaks. Many modern recipes for flank steak use marinades or moist cooking methods, such as braising, to improve the tenderness and flavor. This, combined with a new interest in these cuts’ natural leanness, has increased the price of the flank steak.

Argentine cuts[edit]

The most important cuts of beef in the Argentine cuisine are:[2]

  • Asado: the large section of the rib cage including short ribs and spare ribs
  • Asado de tira: often translated as short ribs, but also sold as long, thin strips of ribs. Chuck ribs, flanken style (cross-cut).
  • Bife de costilla: T-bone or porterhouse steaks
  • Bife de chorizo: strip steak, called NY strip in US
  • Bife de ojo: ribeye steak
  • Bola de lomo: tenderloin
  • Chinchulin: upper portion of small intestines
  • Colita de cuadril: tri-tip, or the tail of the rump roast
  • Cuadril: rump
  • Entraña: skirt steak
  • Falda: naval
  • Lomo: tenderloin
  • Matambre: a long thin cut that lies just under the skin and runs from the lower part of the ribs to belly–or flank area
  • Mollejas: sweetbreads (thymus gland)
  • Pecho: brisket
  • Riñones – kidneys
  • Tapa de asado – rib cap
  • Tapa de nalga – top of round roast
  • Vacío – flank, though it may contain the muscles of other near cuts

Brazilian cuts[edit]

Brazilian beef cuts

The most important cuts of beef in the Brazilian cuisine are:[3]

Turkish cuts[edit]

UK cuts[edit]



British cuts of beef

Dutch cuts[edit]



Dutch cuts of beef

  • Neck
  • Rib
  • Sirloin
  • Tenderloin – Considered to be the premium cut, highly prized. It is called ‘ossenhaas’ in Dutch. It tends to be cut slightly smaller than its American counterpart.
  • Top sirloin
  • Round – Mainly used for kogelbiefstuk (‘hip joint steak’) considered to be the basic form of steak in Dutch and Belgian cuisine.
  • Flank
  • Chuck – Best cuts are used for stoofvlees, lesser bits are used in hachee.

The meat packing industry handles the slaughteringprocessingpackaging, and distribution of animals such as cattlepigssheep and other livestock. The industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hidesfeathers, dried blood, and, through the process of renderingfat such as tallow and protein meals such as meat & bone meal.


Pork packing in Cincinnati, 1873


US history[edit]




Mid-century restructuring by the industry of the stockyards, slaughterhouses and meat packing led to relocating facilities closer to cattle feedlots and swine production facilities, to more rural areas, as transportation shifted from rail to truck. It has been difficult for labor to organize in such locations. In addition, the number of jobs fell sharply through technology and other changes. Wages fell during the latter part of the 20th century, and eventually, both Chicago (in 1971) and Omaha (in 1999) closed their stockyards for good. Historically, the other major meat packing cities in the United States were South St. Paul, MinnesotaEast St. Louis, IllinoisDubuque, IowaKansas City, MissouriAustin, MinnesotaSioux Falls, South Dakota, and Sioux City, Iowa.



Current and historically significant meat packers in the United States include:

Outside the United States:

  • Tongue is considered the cheapest piece of beef; it is used in certain styles of sausages such as the frikandel, though not as the main ingredient.
  • Tail, though not on the image shown, is used extensively in stews.