Buying Bulk Meat

Lightnin' Bolt · July 2009

I am contemplating buying a freezer for the garage and purchasing meat in bulk at a local butcher shop in Ft. Worth, TX. I am curious of the opinions of people that have purchased large quantities of meat (300+ lbs for me) at a time and how the quality of the meat is retained with freezing. I love to cook on my egg and would love to be able to have what I need on hand. Any help and/or guidance would be great.

-Lightnin' Bolt

TXTriker · July 2009

We did real well with our last purchase from our meat market. One of the problems we had was it was always frozen so getting the meat to the refrigerator in time was our problem.

Then we had to throw out 1/4 cow from no electricity because of Hurricane Ike.

Good luck with your choice.

Hoss · July 2009

If you seal the meat in a foodsaver or similar bag it will last for a very long time and you cannot tell it from fresh when you thaw it.

reelgem · July 2009

You can save alot of money that way but from past experience I've ended up pitching out a lot of food that I kept in the freezer too long. I really like to get things fresh and use it right away. I guess if you're going to use the meat in a timely fashion it should be OK. Most people say that can't taste the differnce.

stike · July 2009

meat from the store wrapped in anything other than cryovac won't stay fresh when frozen. the plastic wrap on trays of chicken parts or steaks for example, is air permeable, and can allow freezer burn. it is permeable so that the meat will be bright red when put in trays. otherwise it would stay purple/raw looking. some of the newer tryas with high sides are packedwith carbon monoxide, which keeps the meat brighter red for longer, but the plastic is thin and overfilled with CO, and can easily tear in the freezer

if you freeze cryovac'd larger pieces, or use a foodsealer,as was recommended, then freshness/flavor is maintained almost indefinitely.

as for food safety, bacteria and "is it safe to eat", etc..... well, the USDA itself says you can keep thing frozen virtually forever and they are safe to eat. as long as temps are acceptable

Panhandle Smoker · July 2009

Like Stike said if you are going to invest that much into meat a food saver or other vacuum sealer would be a worthwhile investment. I live on the Gulf Coast so a generator dedicated to the freezer and refrigerator are also a must.

Mainegg · July 2009

We buy a half a cow and a half a pig twice a year and it works great. the big thing is to plan and take the meat out to thaw

and get a food saver. that will pay for itself. the only thing with buying a side of meat or a whole is you are stuck with certain cuts and not enough of others. We are doing more bulk buying at Sams and vac packing to the size package we need and then we have plenty of our favorites.

Shiff · July 2009

We also used to buy a quarter or half a cow,but soon discovered that we didn't like all of the cuts that we received and we never had enough of the cuts we wanted.

Now, we just buy larger quantities of cuts when they are on sale or at Costco and keep them in the freezer. This has worked out very well for us - but we do have to remember to take the meat out of the freezer to defrost. We'd prefer always using fresh meat, but that just isn't practical or economical.

emilluca · July 2009

Buy what is on sale in bulk that is your best value. You get what you want that way. I use Food Savor vac. machine to portion bulk buys out.
T-Bone on sale for 5.99 a pound get 100 lbs and vac.
Butts on sale .99 buy 4 to 6 and vac.
Chicken parts or whole birds buy and vac.
E

Buying Bulk Meat

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