1st Whole Beef Tenderloin...How Did I Do (Butchering)

r270ba

Just finished butchering my first two whole beef tenderloins.  Looking for some advice and what I did right and what I did wrong (or could have done better).

Tenderloins

First Tenderloin (all parts)

Cleaned Chain

Not Sure What To Call This (roast, ends?)

And Finally the Filets (stacked 2 high)

Chubbs

Looks pretty good man. I would be lying if I told you I knew what was right and/or wrong with the cuts. Looks great to me. Well done.

r270ba

Thanks @chubbs. It was pretty easy and I watched several YouTube videos on it. I am just hoping for that confirmation that its done correctly.

dweebs0r

Did you save a ton of money doing it this way?  I realize the prices are different regionally but how much did you spend per tenderloin?

SmokinDAWG82

Looks good to me, you got some good eating coming up! I like to save about a 6" piece to make Beef Wellington but you have plenty to play with. Enjoy

The Cen-Tex Smoker

I've done hundreds of them for our restaurant and meat counter (I sold it a few years ago). They look great. You are hired!

r270ba

@dweebs0r not much better pricing than buying a whole beef tenderloin through Costco.  I saved a little over a $1/lbs compared to buying just 1 beef tenderloin from Costco.  I payed $9.89/lbs I believe.  Now compared to a grocery store I saved a ton.

@smokindawg82 thanks...I haven't had that in a while.  The "roast" end of that should work right?

The Cen-Tex Smoker man that means a lot coming from you!  Thanks!

dweebs0r

I was comparing the price of just a few of those filets compared to the cost of a whole tenderloin.  I'm thinking you saved a lot.  

r270ba

Ha...yea it makes a huge difference if you are comparing to just buying a couple filets at the market.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

The Cen-Tex Smoker man that means a lot coming from you!  Thanks!

If you realized what a $hit show I really was you would take this with a grain of salt as everyone should )

r270ba

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker man that means a lot coming from you!  Thanks!

If you realized what a $hit show I really was you would take this with a grain of salt as everyone should )

Wait so I am not hired??? )

The Cen-Tex Smoker

r270ba said:

The Cen-Tex Smoker man that means a lot coming from you!  Thanks!

If you realized what a $hit show I really was you would take this with a grain of salt as everyone should )

Wait so I am not hired??? )

you are. You just probably don't want to be.

r270ba

I have read about what to do with the chain. What would you do with the ends?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

r270ba said:

I have read about what to do with the chain. What would you do with the ends?

We used them for steak sandwiches (grilled), stir fry, tacos (grilled/pan seared). The uses are endless, really. On the head (fat part), make sure you get all the silver skin out of the middle. You can just kind of follow the natural split with a knife and those pieces will each have silver skin lining the inside. That is really chewy and won't cook off. Make sure you get all that off your fillets as well. Silver skin = no bueno. The tail (skinny) is ready to go and can be used for anything. It's the exact same quality as the center cut meat, just not big enough to cut a full steak out of.

Grambler

What do you do with the chain?

nolaegghead

We take the thin ends, cut them cross grain at about a inch and a half chunks, then assemble portion size "composite" steaks and hold them together with a tight wrap of bacon and a couple toothpicks. Then freeze.  Not something we serve to guests, but the steak tastes just as good cooked.  If I had CT's meat glue, I'd probably use that.

r270ba

Is meat glue bad for you? I have done research and while it does not look bad for you there are plenty of people out there that do not like it.

Eggcelsior

I don't know why people don't like it. It's already in us, otherwise we would be melted blobs with bones sticking out.

Science rules!

nolaegghead

Meat glue isn't bad for you.  It's digested with the rest of the meat. It's bad for your wallet - stuff costs a fortune.

tays44

Meat glue isn't bad for you.  It costs a fortune on restaurant level, but on the manufacturing side it can help you quite a bit to achieve higher yields, so can be money well spent in some cases.

Your tenderloin looks good.  Looks like you only cut center cut steaks, which is fine.  You can also cut 2 or 3 muslce steaks if you leave the ear and wing muscles on.  Doesn't matter either way as long as you cook it and eat it.  Only critique I would have would be on the under side, want to maek sure and remove any HARD fat.  Looks like you may have left some.  Also, one thing people fail to see that on the head of the tender, way at the very end of the 'fat end', there is always about a quarter size piece of fat.  Most people leave it and odn't think anything of it, but under that fat is a heavy piece of silver skin.  Couldn't tell in your pics if you got it or not, but it is overlooked a lot.  I"m sure whatever training videos you watched showed you this.

You can cut your excess into 1-2 oz pieces and use as a very high end, sure to kick ass stew.  I usually grill my side chain as an appetizer when I roast a whole tender. 

Skiddymarker

Great job, looks just fine. In many a restaurant, those "roast ends" would be used for tenderloin medalions and plated for $25, in others they may even get the French treatment and get called Chateaubriand and plated for $50 (for two), hell add a candle and nice white linens and you could get $60. 

I think it was Cen-Tex who said, make sure to trim the silvers off the steaks, yours look really good. 

henapple

My local butcher sells very reasonable by the loaf. $12 for filet. Packaged however you want and grinds the trimmings into burgers. No discount at Kroger or Publix where filet is $21 a pound.

r270ba

Thanks guys. This is just what I was looking for!

nolaegghead

A good use for those scraps - kabobs.  Tenderloin kabobs, after marinating (or without) rock the party.

Eggcelsior

nolaegghead said:

A good use for those scraps - kabobs.  Tenderloin kabobs, after marinating (or without) rock the party.

Rock the party?

Tenderloin sounds like the Run DMC of beef

The Cen-Tex Smoker

nolaegghead said:

We take the thin ends, cut them cross grain at about a inch and a half chunks, then assemble portion size "composite" steaks and hold them together with a tight wrap of bacon and a couple toothpicks. Then freeze.  Not something we serve to guests, but the steak tastes just as good cooked.  If I had CT's meat glue, I'd probably use that.

The only issue with steaks this way is that you are gluing the "outside" part of a cut of meat to the inside which brings all it's contamination inside with it. I personally won't eat a steak past med rare so I don't make composite steaks. It's no different that ground beef at this point so you have to be careful.when gluing chunks of meat together. I leave the pieces small and do kababs, sammies, stir fry etc. 

I love meat glue though and I use it all the time. It's totally safe and anyone who is afraid of it is just not aware that it naturally courses through your veins and is found in most living things all over the planet as one of the building blocks of life as we know it. As Eggcelsior said, you would be a bag of mush without it. It bonds all the proteins in your body so they can build a beautiful you!

plus it makes awesome prosciutto wrapped chicken thighs