What's a good online source for buying bulk beef?

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AreaCode707

AreaCode707

Lifer
Sep 21, 2001
18,440
101
91
If I name one of my goats Beef, and then after processing it results in >10 lbs of meat, am I the possessor of bulk Beef? If so, what should I charge for it?














What if I put it in a Miata?
 
sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
95,027
15,139
126
AreaCode707 said:
If I name one of my goats Beef, and then after processing it results in >10 lbs of meat, am I the possessor of bulk Beef? If so, what should I charge for it?














What if I put it in a Miata?
Click to expand...

You missed the online part.


oh and 10lbs is not bulk!
 
AreaCode707

AreaCode707

Lifer
Sep 21, 2001
18,440
101
91
sdifox said:
You missed the online part.


oh and 10lbs is not bulk!
Click to expand...

I could register a domain and sell bulk Beef online, no biggie.

Most of my yearling goats are about 40-50 lbs, deboned. Is that properly bulk Beef? I could also name one Pork and sell bulk Pork and bulk Beef.
 
Carson Dyle

Carson Dyle

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2012
8,174
524
126
Where did the OP do his prison time?

I knew a guy in New York City from Argentina who sold beef to the New York state prison systems. My God, he and his family made so many millions of dollars from that hookup.
 
Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,414
5,270
136
I'm currently considering picking up a 2nd upright deep freezer. Right now I have a standard freezer/fridge combo in the kitchen & an upright freezer in the basement. Buying raw foods in bulk & doing make-ahead & meal-prep cooking has turned out to have a significant impact on decreasing my food budget, so I'm thinking of using one freezer for food stock of raw ingredients (meats, veggies, etc. from Costco/Sam's & local farms/CSA's) & the second for home-prepared meals. My in-laws buy half a cow every year at a discount & store it in their deep-freezer, so you get really good quality meat for quite a bit cheaper (bulk beef!). For prepared meals, I've primary been doing 3 things:

1. Vacuum-sealed sous vide (especially for steak & chicken). Like with BSCB, an 8-pack is $19, but every other week there's a 50% markdown, so I take those, individually foodsaver them, and throw them in the freezer. Those spread out into a ton of meals by themselves...like with chicken, I can either eat that straight-up, or slice onto a pizza or in a salad or on a panini because it comes out so tender with like zero cooking effort.
2. Dump meals. Basically clones of those super-tasty frozen Bertolli's skillet meals they sell for $9 a pop, as well as crockpot ziploc dump meals (which I've been converting to Instant Pot). They cost like, nothing, taste great, and are stupid easy to make...dump into hot skillet, stir around for 10 minutes, voila. Working on converting those over to the IP as well for even easier hot meal prep!
3. TV dinner trays for leftovers & meal prep. In the same vein, I have some paper "soup cups" for doing soups, chilis, and homemade ice cream. Easy to do a pot of soup & break it up into half a dozen containers for future use.

There's a sale on a 20cf model for $639 right now at Home Depot: (20.5 is the largest I could find on their site)

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Maytag-2...Upright-Freezer-in-White-MZF34X20DW/205755511

The energy ratings have been drastically improved; that Maytag costs $63 a year to run. The old ones cost like $200 to $300 annually to operate, so that's like a 2 or 3-year payback if you're replacing one:

http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/b9/b9b3b434-abd7-4117-bea5-ceaf1a418d73.pdf

Bulk beef, yessssss.
 
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zinfamous

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
110,597
29,227
146
Kaido said:
I'm currently considering picking up a 2nd upright deep freezer. Right now I have a standard freezer/fridge combo in the kitchen & an upright freezer in the basement. Buying raw foods in bulk & doing make-ahead & meal-prep cooking has turned out to have a significant impact on decreasing my food budget, so I'm thinking of using one freezer for food stock of raw ingredients (meats, veggies, etc. from Costco/Sam's & local farms/CSA's) & the second for home-prepared meals. My in-laws buy half a cow every year at a discount & store it in their deep-freezer, so you get really good quality meat for quite a bit cheaper (bulk beef!). For prepared meals, I've primary been doing 3 things:

1. Vacuum-sealed sous vide (especially for steak & chicken). Like with BSCB, an 8-pack is $19, but every other week there's a 50% markdown, so I take those, individually foodsaver them, and throw them in the freezer. Those spread out into a ton of meals by themselves...like with chicken, I can either eat that straight-up, or slice onto a pizza or in a salad or on a panini because it comes out so tender with like zero cooking effort.
2. Dump meals. Basically clones of those super-tasty frozen Bertolli's skillet meals they sell for $9 a pop, as well as crockpot ziploc dump meals (which I've been converting to Instant Pot). They cost like, nothing, taste great, and are stupid easy to make...dump into hot skillet, stir around for 10 minutes, voila. Working on converting those over to the IP as well for even easier hot meal prep!
3. TV dinner trays for leftovers & meal prep. In the same vein, I have some paper "soup cups" for doing soups, chilis, and homemade ice cream. Easy to do a pot of soup & break it up into half a dozen containers for future use.

There's a sale on a 20cf model for $639 right now at Home Depot: (20.5 is the largest I could find on their site)

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Maytag-2...Upright-Freezer-in-White-MZF34X20DW/205755511

The energy ratings have been drastically improved; that Maytag costs $63 a year to run. The old ones cost like $200 to $300 annually to operate, so that's like a 2 or 3-year payback if you're replacing one:

http://www.homedepot.com/catalog/pdfImages/b9/b9b3b434-abd7-4117-bea5-ceaf1a418d73.pdf

Bulk beef, yessssss.
Click to expand...

curious: do you know the monthly electricity cost to run your deep freezer? I've never had one for myself (dad had one many years ago), so I don't even know what temperature these commercial units are rated for. I imagine that they are ~ -20 C?

EDIT: lol, < didn't read before posting. :D

also, when you freeze individual chicken/steak in vacuum packs (I do this occasionally, as well) do you season them--esp w/ salt--before sealing and freezing? I don't like the idea of the meat curing, but I wonder if the deep freeze slows/prevents the curing process?
 
Last edited:
highland145

highland145

Lifer
Oct 12, 2009
43,345
5,774
136
If you're not going to be in the deep freezer frequently, get a thermostat with alarm. My situation was a little different because I had a chest type freezer but the alarm would have saved a bunch of blueberries. My bro stored about 100qts of berries and the bottom half went bad because the freezer wasn't working right and we didn't know it.
 
Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,414
5,270
136
highland145 said:
If you're not going to be in the deep freezer frequently, get a thermostat with alarm. My situation was a little different because I had a chest type freezer but the alarm would have saved a bunch of blueberries. My bro stored about 100qts of berries and the bottom half went bad because the freezer wasn't working right and we didn't know it.
Click to expand...

Yup, went through this recently. Someone left the door ajar on accident & everything melted. Lost money in inventory, plus made a big mess. AcuRite has a great kit for $25 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/AcuRite-Refrigerator-Freezer-Wireless-Thermometer/dp/B004QJVU78

Fridge & freezer monitors, wireless display with alarms, and can handle -40 to 100F.
 
Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
48,414
5,270
136
zinfamous said:
curious: do you know the monthly electricity cost to run your deep freezer? I've never had one for myself (dad had one many years ago), so I don't even know what temperature these commercial units are rated for. I imagine that they are ~ -20 C?

EDIT: lol, < didn't read before posting. :D

also, when you freeze individual chicken/steak in vacuum packs (I do this occasionally, as well) do you season them--esp w/ salt--before sealing and freezing? I don't like the idea of the meat curing, but I wonder if the deep freeze slows/prevents the curing process?
Click to expand...

I have a Kill-a-watt I use to check things. Unless you have a generous budget, you kind of have to figure out the operating cost vs. the cost of buying a replacement unit + the cost of operating the new unit to see if it'd be worth it financially. I believe that Maytag goes down to -15F, but I'll have to check the manual, not quite sure. Some deep freezers don't have specific temperature settings, just like a basic dial for coldness. That's one of the things I'm researching on a 2nd unit. You'd think this info would be on the product specs page...

I freeze my stuff using a FoodSaver, which is a vacuum sealer. For meat, it extends the life out to 2 to 3 years because there's no air in the bag after you vac-seal it. I've done some long-term testing at home with good results. As far as seasoning, I do both. Mostly, I just do raw meat because it's more versatile (I can always just thaw it out for grilling or whatever too), but my buddy uses his Anova almost exclusively to cook pre-marinated meals, so it depends on if you want to store raw materials or if you want to store ready-to-cook meals (or both). I've been experimenting with vacuum-sealed pre-seasoned meals for my sous vide, but haven't really dug into it that much yet. My in-laws live in the mid-west & pay about $3.50 per pound for half a cow, which includes a ton of cuts (steak, brisket, roasts, etc.) as well as ground beef. In my area (CT), 90/10 lean ground beef is $5.29 per pound. This site has a nice article on buying a cow & how much room it takes to freeze it:

http://www.clovermeadowsbeef.com/buying-half-a-cow/

They say half a cow is 220 pounds, so approximately:

1. $1164 at supermarket prices (excluding the more expensive steak cuts)
2. $770 at bulk pricing (well, for mid-west pricing, will have to check New England pricing)

So about a $394 cost savings for buying in bulk (add in five or six bucks a month to operate the freezer). And that's just for beef alone, assuming you'd actually use 220 pounds in a year. Add in chicken, fish, pork, veggies, etc. and it really adds up. I buy the 5-pound bags of frozen veggies at Sam's Club & they're like five or ten bucks each, big costs savings over just buying the small bags at the grocery store (even the 10 for $10 deals they have once in awhile). Right now, I do some bulk storage, but the freezer in my fridge/freezer in my kitchen is pretty small, so I have to use the big upright in the basement for everything else. Would be really convenient...big up-front cost, but would pay for itself in a couple years!
 
ponyo

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,689
2,811
126
Meh. I don't see the point of buying bulk beef by half a cow. About 1/2 the beef you get from the cow is going to be in the form of ground beef. 88/12% fresh ground beef is $2.99 /lb at Costco everyday.

I eat lot of red meat. Probably too much for my own good. Just buy the meat from Costco. Let them store it.
 
sdifox

sdifox

No Lifer
Sep 30, 2005
95,027
15,139
126
Kaido said:
I have a Kill-a-watt I use to check things. Unless you have a generous budget, you kind of have to figure out the operating cost vs. the cost of buying a replacement unit + the cost of operating the new unit to see if it'd be worth it financially. I believe that Maytag goes down to -15F, but I'll have to check the manual, not quite sure. Some deep freezers don't have specific temperature settings, just like a basic dial for coldness. That's one of the things I'm researching on a 2nd unit. You'd think this info would be on the product specs page...

I freeze my stuff using a FoodSaver, which is a vacuum sealer. For meat, it extends the life out to 2 to 3 years because there's no air in the bag after you vac-seal it. I've done some long-term testing at home with good results. As far as seasoning, I do both. Mostly, I just do raw meat because it's more versatile (I can always just thaw it out for grilling or whatever too), but my buddy uses his Anova almost exclusively to cook pre-marinated meals, so it depends on if you want to store raw materials or if you want to store ready-to-cook meals (or both). I've been experimenting with vacuum-sealed pre-seasoned meals for my sous vide, but haven't really dug into it that much yet. My in-laws live in the mid-west & pay about $3.50 per pound for half a cow, which includes a ton of cuts (steak, brisket, roasts, etc.) as well as ground beef. In my area (CT), 90/10 lean ground beef is $5.29 per pound. This site has a nice article on buying a cow & how much room it takes to freeze it:

http://www.clovermeadowsbeef.com/buying-half-a-cow/

They say half a cow is 220 pounds, so approximately:

1. $1164 at supermarket prices (excluding the more expensive steak cuts)
2. $770 at bulk pricing (well, for mid-west pricing, will have to check New England pricing)

So about a $394 cost savings for buying in bulk (add in five or six bucks a month to operate the freezer). And that's just for beef alone, assuming you'd actually use 220 pounds in a year. Add in chicken, fish, pork, veggies, etc. and it really adds up. I buy the 5-pound bags of frozen veggies at Sam's Club & they're like five or ten bucks each, big costs savings over just buying the small bags at the grocery store (even the 10 for $10 deals they have once in awhile). Right now, I do some bulk storage, but the freezer in my fridge/freezer in my kitchen is pretty small, so I have to use the big upright in the basement for everything else. Would be really convenient...big up-front cost, but would pay for itself in a couple years!
Click to expand...

I am going to build a MCU driven sous-vide :awe: :sunglasses:
 
Ichinisan

Ichinisan

Lifer
Oct 9, 2002
28,298
1,234
136
Does a B1G1 double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonalds count as "bulk beef online" when I order through the McDonalds mobile app?
 
brianmanahan

brianmanahan

Lifer
Sep 2, 2006
24,237
5,634
136
Ichinisan said:
Does a B1G1 double quarter pounder with cheese from McDonalds count as "bulk beef online" when I order through the McDonalds mobile app?
Click to expand...

dude i just got that deal tonight! best burger i've had from mcdonald's in at least a decade.

it was definitely bulk beef.
 
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