Pork prices

[Yelnoc]

From near the alleged pork capital of the world in west central Illinois. So I smoked 4 shoulders Sunday and just finished weighing and vaccu sealing them. I trim closely and when I pull I try to get out all the fat I can – I got about 14 lbs of product. The case price of shoulders at Sam’s has been as low as $1.06 and the price this time last year was around $1.35. I haven’t cooked more than 150 shoulders over the past 10 years or so and the lowest I remember the price was $.99. I think they are trimming them a little less, but overall they are about the same. However this means that I am getting less than 50% yield. I know my methods of pulling leaves out a lot of pork that would typically remain if one used the Carolina method of chopping or used one of the drill based pull/shred setups. You pay your money and you take your chances. Beef is steady to a little lower - rib eye three packs at $7.85 or so a lb. - looked at a really nice packer brisket that was trimmed as close as the shoulders and it was about $50 - didn't check the per lb.

[LA Pork Butt]

Butts in my area go on sale for $.99 a pound tomorrow. Every food has waste. It seems like it would take a lot of effort to calculate the cost per edible pound after waste an shrinkage. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts go on sale for $1.99 and even they have shrinkage.

[Yelnoc]

Hard - not sure why? You know what it weighs before and after (at that point mine is 100% edible) ....and the difference is?

[EubieQ]

I was looking to do a brisket this past weekend when sticker shock hit me...$7.49/lb! I looked for 'wagyu' somewhere on the label but couldn't find it... So the almost 10#er that I was eyeing lost out to 2 butts @$1.69/lb. Sam's in our area (Porkopolis) has been running around the $1.25-$1.35 case price last I checked.

[LA Pork Butt]

Yelnoc what I meant to say was that it would be a lot of hassel to track original weight - waste and shrinkage to find out which meat or seafood is the best bargain. I suppose once you have done it for each food you can use sale prices to compute actual cost of edible food. The variance in edible food from one piece fatty food to another like pork butt could be pretty wide, so which variance would you use the next time you shop.

[Yelnoc]

Over hundreds of shoulders its not difficult. I want to know what they weigh and what I have after smoking - its all a matter of needing to know how much to buy within a reasonable parameter. All foods different obviously.

[LA Pork Butt]

I'm gathering you aren't comparing cost of different kinds of meat, but are only trying to gage the cost of finished pork butt for cost effectiveness when feeding a crowd.

[_John_]

We are $1.17 a pound for a case right now. I lose about 40% during cooking but never have weighed from cryo to include losses in trimming. I trim really close, and usually a case at a time, I ought to measure next time but some are worse than others, I would say I trim about 5 pounds on average. Around here my briskets are decently priced, but they have been leaving on way more fat, I lose 25% right of the bat. Take away that and I'm left with only about 5 pounds of brisket after cooking. Brisket costs me 3x as much finished as pork, chuck roasts are a better deal than brisket for me, plus I think it is better.

[LA Pork Butt]

Guest I would take the rich taste of chuck over brisket. In central Texas they do an awesome entire beef shoulder. For me it beats brisket. I moved from pork to beef country.

[Yelnoc]

5lbs - if per case is not too bad - my cases are 10 per w/2 per bag and I'm guessing that is about what I get.

[Craigar]

Boston butts this week at Fareway in the Omaha area are on sale for $0.99/lbs. As of last Saturday the case price for pork butts at our local Sam's was $1.02/lbs. Now I am waiting for bacon to roll back to $2.99/lbs.