Chuck Roll breakdown

[gboss]

Thanks to PJ Panhead John telling us all about the $8 Sam's membership, I ended up buying a whole chuckroll from Sam's. I've been interested in trying some of the "new" shoulder steaks and this seemed like a good opportunity.

For those that may not know, a little while back some beef group sponsored research looking for "unknown" but tender and flavorful muscles that are not usually sold as steaks. The "flat iron" steak was one of these, and later on the research expanded to invent the "Denver" "Sierra" "Teres Major" etc.
c.f. https://beef.unl.edu/beefreports/symp-2009-16-xxi.shtml

CAB Choice beef.
20.90lbs (9480g) starting weight @$3.98/lb. $83.18 total



Separate the Chuck Eye Roll and the Underblade.



This is the sierra location (Blue circle). It's seamed in, so you can practically remove it without a knife. The Denver (Orange circle) is what's left after you remove the Sierra and trim the "extra" from the Denver. It's a large piece of meat, but it's really not all that difficult to break down this way with a little patience and some youtube guidance.



Here's the Sierra separated before trim:


And here's the whole Denver before I cut it up.




Yield:





Steaks and Roasts:
2 thick chuck eye steaks
2 chuck eye roll roasts
1 Sierra
7 good sized Denver steaks, 2 petite Denver steaks
12.2lbs 5532g


Lean Trim for ground:
4.73lbs 2144g

Discarded:
3.98lb 1804g

Yield ~81%, price per lb adjusted for yield: $4.91/lb for usable meat.
Note: I did not save any fat; I have way too much anyway and wouldn't really know how to value that anyway.

[rickgregory]

Got links to videos showing how to break one down?

[gboss]

I'll post a few of the ones I watched after work today.

[rickgregory]

gboss - thanks. I'm confused as to what happens to the meat not in either the blue or orange circles etc so i think if i watch it being done, I'll get it better.

[gboss]

rickgregory that all was saved as "trim" and will be used for hamburger at some point. The pieces are portioned and vacuum sealed for the moment.

[jfmorris]

This is intriguing, and if I can find one of those at my Sam's Club, I'm on it, once I see some guidance from Youtube links. I broke down my last brisket into 2 3-4 pound flats and a 4-5 pound point, and froze it the way. Also broke down a prime rib into a spinalis steak, boneless prime rib and a 7 bone slab of beef back ribs. This can't be any harder than that...

gboss, how long did it take you to break it down?

EDIT: Checking online, it is in stock at my local Sam's Club for $4.18 per pound. I'll be looking for it next time I am over there!

[gboss]

This time it took me about an hour because I was going slowly and consulting videos as I went. The piece I had was from the opposite side of the animal than the example, so I had to flip the reference points in my head. Next time should be easier. If you can break down a rib subprimal like that, this should not be too difficult for you.

[Huskee]

Wow, thank you for the work that went into this. Much appreciated!

[gboss]

rickgregory jfmorris

Here's some of the videos I watched in preparation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEF7Qrz5DJ4

Very good and comprehensive. I cut the Denver steaks out of the whole Denver a little differently than he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npzRwXSvEyg

Another good video. The final Denver breakdown is again a little different.

Good short description:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/beef-chuck-roll-steaks-and-roasts-995238

[gboss]

rickgregory This is the meat that's within neither blue nor orange. It is pre-burger.

Edit: a lot of space is required. Those are 2/3 sized sheet pans, not the usual half. It's important to be prepared and set up before you open the cryovac.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

To value the fat, you'd have to render it, weight it, then compare to the price of beef tallow.

Great work here though!

[gboss]

I already have more tallow than I could reasonably use.

[Mosca]

Doggone, that looks like fun! Nice work!

[gboss]

This is another video that I watched that does the whole bone in chuck primal. There's a lot more going on here, and I could do without the "banter" and they trash talk the Sierra, but it's still pretty informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXrP3kMQAg

[jfmorris]

gboss are you still liking these steaks from breaking down a chuck roll? I am thinking of getting a case of these at Sam's Club, which is 3-4 of them... Just wanted your feedback before filling my freezer with $4.28 beef from the chuck roll... This does seem like the best bang for the buck locally for me right now, and I've already seen the price go up 20 cents since you posted this...

[jfmorris]

Well, the biggest chuck roll they had at my Sam's was just over 16 pounds. It came home with me, along with a 12.93 pound pack of short ribs at $6.98 per pound. Neither of those cuts is ever out in the meat counter, and I had to ask for them. I think they must just slice the chuck roll into chuck roasts and put it on trays? And they slice all the short ribs up thin, flanken style before they put them out.

I lost the vacuum seal on the ribs from handling - I think a bone poked a hole, but it was tight when I got them. I went ahead and trimmed surface fat off and repacked those at lunch into two vacuum bags and plopped them into the deep freeze. They turned out to be 3 bone sections, so I just left them as such for smoking. If they had been 4 bone sections, I would have cut and packed in 2 bone pieces, as that would be plenty for the wife and me. We will just have leftovers with 3 of them each time.

I'll butcher the chuck roll per gboss instructions tonight.

[gboss]

Interested to hear about your experience with this!

[jfmorris]

Well, I broke down a chuck roll tonight after looking at the pictures and videos gboss posted. Fairly happy. I think due to the smaller 16 pound size - I think his was 20 pounds - I was not able to get many decent sized Denver steaks. Quite a few were very small as the underblade was thinner than expected once I got all the trim and random crap, silver skin and fat off.

Got two nice chuck eye steaks, two small chuck eye roasts, a Sierra that is small but passable, several good size Denver’s and a half dozen or so small Denver’s that will just be cooked as steak pieces I suppose. I packed those 4 to a bag. Also had maybe 4-5 pounds of trim that I will grind into burger tomorrow. Gave SWMBO choice of stew beef or ground beef, and she chose ground.

I think I probably had a lot more trim than I should have, but it comes from following those fat and sinew seams. A lot of that stuff on the pan has got a lot of long strands that run the length of the pieces, and would be tough if cooked that way.

[jfmorris]

I will add that the trim resulted in 4.5 pounds of nice ground beef that I processed with my Kitchenaid meat grinder attachment. So there was really no waste on this hunk of beef.