Beef Prices keep on climbing

[Bogy]

Biggest impact on my "beef" buying is that my favorite Mexican Food Truck has stopped carrying Lengua. And that was already last fall. I'm sure it's not their biggest seller, and I'm not sure they even have a beef option on the menu anymore.

Last October for a church dinner I had promised to do my traditional smoked brisket. I did it, but I held off buying it until I had no choice, and found some at Sam's for about $5.50. The supermarkets around me weren't even carrying them, one relatively new butcher said they never carried them, but I told her they did, just not when summer smoking season was done, at the prices they were now. I do have a brisket in the freezer I snagged an 18 lb brisket at Sam's a month or so ago for $4.99 a lb. It's choice. I could have bought prime for another buck a lb, but they didn't have one that was less than 22 lbs. Besides, I have never had anyone complain about my choice briskets.

Church picnic coming up in a few weeks. The women met yesterday, and while I offered to do my usual smash burgers, they decided I should do pulled pork. Which in hog country they are almost giving away. For something like 20 years I have always bought another 1/4 or 1/2 or full beef as soon as one was gone. A couple of years ago when the big problem was finding one of the local processors to have time to do it I had a 1/4 and a 1/2 both ready a week apart from different guys. Always have hamburger left when the good stuff is gone, so I've done the burgers out of the hamburger we have an excess of. Generally, between hanging weight and processing my beef has run under $3 lb. Talking with one of the guys in my church today, and it would run more like $8-$9. You want to know how bad it is? Guys around here aren't big on beef, more hogs and chickens. But a lot of the guys run 20 or 30 head at a time. The price is so high they can't afford to keep any for themselves, and if a steer goes down they have lost several thousand dollars. It's not going to get better anytime soon. The last time it was this dry was in the 1930s, so there is nothing to feed a herd, and that doesn't take into account the herds that were lost to blizzards/sub 0F temps. Hogs can come back after the herds are decimated for some reason. Beef takes longer. Even if it starts raining now, it's going to be a while before the herds are going to be rebuilt. Justice "investigating" packing plants? Smokescreen because they don't want to investigate why farmers/ranchers don't have anything to sell for the packers to pack. But someone has to be blamed, and because the packers are owned by other countries they are a good target.

So you can do what farmers around here are doing. Eat lots of chicken, pork and fish.

[jfmorris]

Yeah, I'm resigned to lots of chicken and pork this summer. Fish is fine, but not something I grill often. Burgers and hotdogs are probably the only beef I will see much of.

[yakima]

Brother reports turning out yearlings and cows to very short grass, due to drought. Will have to move them a lot, so much higher truck and driving costs. Corn relatively cheap, but costs rapidly escalating.

[Bogy]

Hopefully it wasn't on here, but I had an arguement with a couple of guys a few years ago about how the beef I buy has been grass fed for most of their lives, and then fed out on corn at the end. They were from Texas or some other weird place like that and told me I was nuts, corn was way to expensive to feed cattle with. Unfortunately, I asked a couple of friends how much money they were losing on each acre of corn and soybeans they were planting. "We don't talk about that."

[yakima]

Bogy. If my family runs out of grass, they can move yearlings early to feedlots, keeping cows on grass for the season. They raise all of their needed corn, and some alfalfa. So, cheap corn is an advantage. For me, not so much, since I just have corn, no livestock.

As to costs, in my view it mostly depends upon your debt. Owning the land outright, even with low prices and/or bad weather, I have never lost money, over about 50 years. Knock on wood.

[Bogy]

yakima yeah, pretty much the same playbook as the 1980s. Guys who own their land and didn't overextend are OK. Remember lots of the old guys then who said the young guys didn't know how to farm. But the young guys starting out were buying land with double digit interest rates. Friends who have hogs and feed all the corn they grow, and then need to buy more are fine with cheap corn. One old guy told me he felt bad, because it was good for him, but he knew the sellers were hurting.

[Huskee]

I looked at steaks a couple days ago in my local mom & pop grocery store, $23.99/lb for ribeye and $19.99/lb strips. Not Prime, just Certified Angus. Nothing fancy, just too-thin regular ol' grocery store steaks. I just can't do it.

Sam's has the big family packs of Choice ribeyes for $14.97/lb, much more reasonable... if you want 5 or 6 steaks. I used to get loins from Creekstone and wet age them and carve my own steaks, but they haven't gone on sale in a year maybe two, and they're far pricier now.

We're becoming more of a chicken family....

[Uncle Bob]

Creekstone is running a Memorial Day sale right now with rib roasts costing slightly less than your local store per pound, though likely better quality. Just in case...

[surfdog]

Around here it’s sub-$20 for Certified Angus and just a bit over for prime. Close enough generally that I’ll have a look and both to decide.

[JeffJ]

Earlier this week I found choice strips for $14.99 per pound. Bought them without hesitation.

[JeffJ]

this is what it looked like.

[Jerod Broussard]

The silver lining for me is I don't have to mess with briskets on June 8th. I can just smoke some pork steaks and some pork sausage in barbecue sauce for a dinner.

[Bogy]

It's going to be easier for me on June 11 when I do pulled pork for the church picnic instead of smash burgers. It's not that smash burgers are hard to do. But it's going to be easier to smoke the pork on Saturday, let it rest overnight wrapped in a 190 oven, and then pull and take it to the lake in a roaster than it is to haul the flattop to the lake, fry the hamburger I rolled into balls, and then haul the flattop back home after it's cooled off.

[Jerod Broussard]

Bogy "grilled" stuff is a pain for large groups.

[Draznnl]

$5.99/lb. for choice brisket at Costco this morning.

[realdocBBQ]

I'm pretty sure I haven't even seen less than $3.99/lb since pre-COVID days. So $1.99/2.99 per pound here woulda been 8+ years ago, I think? I don't know for sure, though...

[jfmorris]

Bogy realdocBBQ I was getting choice brisket on sale at Kroger for as low as $1.99/lb if I watched sale pricing and "plus" coupons closely a couple of years ago. I saw a sale for $2.99/lb about 6 months ago, but by the time I got over there, it was 6 days into a 7 day sale, and the store was sold out.

I routinely check the sales flyers for Publix, Kroger and The Fresh Market in my area, as their sale pricing can beat the regular pricing at Sam's or Costco. BOGO on butts at Publix for example.

[realdocBBQ]

Yeah jfmorris I hear about those sales - I see people on FB claiming they got $3.99/lb at Kroger and even occasionally at H.E.B. Unfortunately we don't have any of that stuff here. I haven't seen anything like those prices in years, even on sale. Ever. I keep an eye out, as well. Sucks.

[wrgilb]

@Bogy Have you held pork butts in the oven overnight before? How hard are they to pull the next day. I'll be doing 8 of them for a church get together next week and thought of cooking and pulling the day before then reheating the next day, but holding them in the oven seems like that would be better if they are still easy to pull the next day. Looking forward to anyone else's method.

[realdocBBQ]

Yup. I've used apple, orange, peach, various options - my best has been with white grape. That's what I use consistently now, if I am going to.

[wrgilb]

Thanks for the help guys. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll cook 8 butts on my Pit Boss Copper Head 7, using Traeger signature pellets in the hopper and a smoke tube with 100% black cherry pellets in the cooking chamber. Cook until they reach 165 to 170 and then put them in foil pans with brown sugar and butter and a little white grape juice, cover and cook to probe tender 204 or so.

Pour off the juice, separate the fat. Add more grape juice, reduce the temp to 140-150 and let if go all night.

[realdocBBQ]

wrgilb I don't think you need to add sugar and juice when you put it in pans. You'll end up with a LOT of residual juice and fat just from putting them in pans at the end portion of the stall. I say you just pan 'em up, finish cooking and hold. Then when you pull them from the hold to shred them, decide if they need any more juice - add a little white grape then. I wouldn't add anything prior to that, honestly.

[Donw]

There was an article on the AP News site today about how Argentinian beef consumption is at the lowest level in 20 years. Floods and other weather events have reduced supplies there by 10% but their inflation and our government’s allowing higher quotas of beef imports from Argentina have both led to even more supply and affordability issues. Butcher shops and other stores who never thought of carrying anything other than beef are now branching out and carrying poultry and pork.

[jfmorris]

Well - I ran to Sam's on Monday the 18th, and found they had a number of chuck roasts that had sell by dates of the 20th (today) marked down by 25%, making the price $6.25 per pound. I nabbed an 8 pound pack containing two similar sized chuck roasts with that pricing. I stuck them in the fridge and forgot about them until this morning!

I am going to smoke one today, and freeze the other for future use. $6.25 for Angus choice chuck is a good deal these days. I do miss the days chuck roast was going for $3 to $4 per pound, and brisket for $2 to $3!

Now, to figure out what to serve WITH smoked and pulled chuck. I'm expecting 5-6 hours for the cook at 275 on the kamado, so will get it going later this morning.

[Spinaker]

Try this if you are feel adventurous........right after I light my kamado I throw the whole onion in, right on the coals. Skin and all. It will cook for 20 mins and then take it out, remove the otter layers of skin and you have an amazingly cooked onion all the way through. I do it every time I grill. I thought about doing a write up on it for years but I always forget.

[jfmorris]

Spinaker I will try that next time I light the grill! I read this hours after I finished cooking unfortunately!

Are you lighting with a chimney or something to get the kamado going, and dumping that in? When I light, the first 20 minutes is just a starter cube or tumbleweed to get things going...

[Spinaker]

I use a torch and light one spot and let it burn from there. Give it a few tries so you can figure out how you like your onion, but it is a great way to do it. Onions are about 90% water, so they handle that direct heat very well. The outside will get all black, but the inside is perfect. I will rotate the onion everyone in a while too. Look for onions that are about the size of a baseball or larger for the best results when cooking for a while. Small onions work too, but cook faster.

[Lynn Dollar]

Boom , Wednesday morning at Sams. These were choice with good spinalis . Goin in the freezer.

Prime brisket was $6 .

[Murdy]

Wild Fork currently has prime packer briskets for $5.98 per lb.:

https://wildforkfoods.com/products/usda-prime-beef-brisket-1004/

[Hulagn1971]

If only they still delivered to my area. I miss those days.

[jfmorris]

Yeah, closest Wild Fork stores are 450+ miles away, so don't think they will deliver to me anymore.

[Dewesq55]

ShopRite by me has 80/20 store ground beef for $2.99/lb for the family pack with the loyalty card!

[Michael_in_TX]

That is like 2010 prices.

[DuckinBBQ]

Wife saw an ad Fred Meyers (A northwest grocery/department store) has a sale on ribeye steaks, $7.99/lb. this holiday weekend. The steaks looked a bit thin for my desire. I asked the butcher , if we buy the entire rib roast, will you cut us 2" steaks and cut the rib off for us and honor the $7.99lb? He went for it. Paid $173 for nine 2" thick ribeyes and a rack of beef ribs.

[TomfromtheSoo]

You have a good eye and a good butcher!

A 2” steak is great.

[Donw]

Well done sir, well done.🙂

[Potkettleblack]

Nicely done.

[snowswamp]

I’m going elk and bison which is the same price, or cheaper than beef here when I want red meat. Mostly I’ve been getting poultry and pork.