Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

Actual Weight of Meat - Can we be honest?

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So who's killed an elephant? How did that go? I weighed out a buck years ago right after processing it, no bone's. Don't recall what the meat weighted but wasn't near as much as I thouht there might be. Never did that again, to depressing! Made a good dent in the freezer though!
I had elephant tenderloin and watched one get butchered. The only thing left at the kill site was the leg bones. It had a grass flavor and was sort of stringy.
 
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Recent cow elk about 56lbs rear quarters bone in, 42-43lbs bone out, both front shoulders combined 37+lbs bone out, all other meat 48lbs without one tenderloin and heart that didn't get weighed, so around 175lbs bone out. I probably could get more off ribs and neck, need to work on the rib roll.
5 point bull nearly identical bone out weight on front and hind quarters as this cow, other meat was about 53 lbs for backstraps, tenderloins, neck and heart, most of the rib meat was blood shot and didn't grab the liver. So basically the same weight as last year's cow.
 
I got my cow elk back from processor today.
285 lbs of processed meat to include 80 lbs of burger. Large cow.
My mind can’t even comprehend that. You’re saying take home meat poundage you had 285 lbs? Did you take it in whole? What was the hanging weight whole?

Did you keep the rib cage or something. Come on man…

Pic of the cut sheet or it didn’t happen!
 
I took it in whole.
I have receipt but not sure it says hang weight. Processor noted she was heavy.
First time I have returned from processor without feeling underwhelmed.
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I could see a standard big cow coming back at 285 finished product if the entire thing was ground into sausages or 80/20 burger

Very curious about that hanging weight.
 
That's huge! Did the burger have anything added to up the weight?
I did not add anything to burger this time. Processor did say above 700 but I didn’t write down actual hanging weight, nor does receipt say hanging.

I don’t actually have a bathroom scale or I would reweigh the boxes. The two were too large to fit stacked on top each other in chest freezer. I had to stand the boxes up in order to fit.
I will separate meat into crates for a little easier access. And my wife likes to track the meat on a white board.

If people want a video I guess I can. I do intend to buy a freezer monitor in case the temperature goes out.

She was too heavy for two of us to load, I had to winch her in from a utv over my bed rail.
 
Decent sized cow.

4 quarters, backstraps, brisket, some neck meat. Lost a bit on both shoulders. Forgot to weigh tenderloins.

97# packaged in the freezer.

I think I am trimming too much and tossing it. Watched a video that said anything you can see through can be added to the grind pile. I’ve been tossing it or filleting off any meat I can.

I think for fun next time I’ll try to get it out whole and see just how much I can get.

Although fun and getting an elk out whole probably don’t go together. We’ll see.
 
Bull Bison, not including the tenderloins and rib meat, was 345lbs from the processor, nothing added. No idea on field weight with bone in, but the bones make an elk shank look like a rabbit leg.

A family friend who got a bull bison on the Elk Refuge and did the "tag and drag" to get the whole carcass to the processor has a receipt that shows 759lbs for hanging weight.
 
Roosevelt bull elk from Alaska: 380lbs boned out with some minor loss to one shoulder. Dried for 4 days and weighed 362.5lbs on good scales.
I can confirm that this number is no joke.

My Roosevelt bull + Blacktail deer from AK as we didn't specifically weight/separate them. There was practically zero meat lost on both animals as they were both shot behind the front shoulders and thru the ribs/gut.

Started with 460# +/- 5# of packaged boneless meat that we brought home. The +/- is because the scale was accurate but we were rounding to nearest pound as we weighted in batches from 5-50#.

While trimming steaks and preparing the meat for grinding by removing the gristle and tallow, there was 53# of scraps removed.

53# was cooked and reduced down to 28# of meat/grissel that was made into dog food.
 
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