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Newbies! Why Buy from a Butcher?

Unojo
Unojo Posts: 23
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
Shopped at the local grocer this weekend and was czechin' out the butts - prepackaged butt was $1.49 a pound, a nice price. Picked up a 10#'er and thought it feels like 10#'s, but it's awful small so I passed.

Stopped by the butcher here in Granbury, asked for the butt, he weighs it up, 8.5#'s, @ $1.69/pound. So, tongue firmly in cheek I said: "Mr. Butcher, your scales are wrong. That's twice as big as the 10# butt at the grocery store. I'll take it."

To make a long story short, the 8.5# butt cooked down to 4.8#'s, and was still bigger than the size of the 10#'er as best as I recall.

Prepackaged meat is packed in, and maybe even injected with, water. Water weighs 8.33#'s per gallon and then some depending on how much salt was added to it.

IF, and I stress IF, my math is close, I suspect the grocer's butt was actually closer to $3.00 per pound when unpacked and drained...

Get to know your butcher, he saves you money in the long run.

Comments

  • Car Wash Mike
    Car Wash Mike Posts: 11,244
    They are called meat cutters and the State inspects the scales on a bi-monthly basis.
    But point taken. You can get good value knowing your meat cutter.
    Mike
  • BENTE
    BENTE Posts: 8,337
    getting to know your butcher is good advice!!

    i don't have a butcher i have a meat man and mine will sharpen my knives (for free) cause i talk to him and cause i talk to everyone in the store.. so i believe firmly in your statement but i have to expand it... get to know everyone in whatever store you patronize.. it will help you in the short and long run :whistle:

    happy eggin

    TB

    Anderson S.C.

    "Life is too short to be diplomatic. A man's friends shouldn't mind what he does or says- and those who are not his friends, well, the hell with them. They don't count."

    Tyrus Raymond Cobb

  • FSUScotsman
    FSUScotsman Posts: 754
    One of my favorite things about Publix is that don't have to worry about getting something in my meat that isn't meat!!
  • I am a butcher because I have the knowledge to take a whole side of beef and break it down into it's primal cuts. Meat cutters only know how to cut primal cuts into steaks and roast.
  • I am a butcher because I have the knowledge to take a whole side of beef and break it down into it's primal cuts. Meat cutters only know how to cut primal cuts into steaks and roast.
  • Unojo
    Unojo Posts: 23
    I had no idea this would turn into a fireman/firefighter issue...
  • emilluca
    emilluca Posts: 673
    Never ever make the person you buy the flesh of dead animals angry.
    Once they are out of your sight hard telling what they will do with that flesh before you get it...
    Hate to eat a tbone carried out of the meat locker in their armpit or worse...
    Emil
  • emilluca
    emilluca Posts: 673
    You know I can argue a butcher takes an animal that walks in kills it skins or defeather it and hangs it to cool. A floor cutter will bring a whole animal that has been killed and processed into primal pieces. A boner will take primal pieces and get them into wholesale pieces. A meat cutter takes pieces and turns them into flesh in nice little packages that people take home and prepare in a fashion they prefer.

    Very few people know the whole process and can go into their are and take a living and breathing animal and make it restaurant or home ready for consumption.
    Emil