How much freezer room for a cattle beast?

redcoo235

Member
Livestock Farmer
Getting a fat heifer killed for sharing between three families and wondered roughly how much freezer space we will need? Beast is 650kg and will be an R grade. Have 2, 300 litre chest freezers, be enough?

TIA, John
 

milkloss

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Can’t help but add another question, sorry. Haven’t had one done here for years but I gather there’s various ways of having them chopped up, anyone know any more?
 

An Gof

Member
Location
Cornwall
Your problem won’t be just space but freezing capacity. Most domestic freezers don’t cope with much more than 18-20kg of fresh meat at a time in their recommendation. I just had a bullock killed, was a little smaller than yours and we were fortunate to split it between 3 deepfreezers. Even then we had to move the meat around after 24 hours to ensure it was all freezing. As this was an unexpected beast for us I had to buy a new extra freezer as well. Bought a Liebherr freezer as they are the best spec. If both your 300L freezers are empty you should have enough space but watch the freezing capacity. As a rule of thumb I was told by my butcher to take LW x KO% x 2/3 for an estimate of final quantity.
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
My advice would be that you will eat more mince than stews. Don’t be shy to mince the braiding beef as you will have tonnes of it. Burgers are excellent for this
Also, the Croft steak, if eaten soon after cutting is like a good rump steak. I would eat that first as it after a few months it becomes stewing beef too. The good cuts like fillet and sirloin will happily freeze for longer.
Organise your freezer: steak together, roasting joints together, stewingbeef and mince together.
oh, and have a think how you want the top ribs. Full rib of beef or rib eye steak?
 

Wink

Member
Location
Hampshire
My advice would be that you will eat more mince than stews. Don’t be shy to mince the braiding beef as you will have tonnes of it. Burgers are excellent for this
Also, the Croft steak, if eaten soon after cutting is like a good rump steak. I would eat that first as it after a few months it becomes stewing beef too. The good cuts like fillet and sirloin will happily freeze for longer.
Organise your freezer: steak together, roasting joints together, stewingbeef and mince together.
oh, and have a think how you want the top ribs. Full rib of beef or rib eye steak?
Croft steak? - not heard of it and did a quick Google and can't find anything. Is it a regional term? I'm interested to know.
 

Treecreeper

Member
Livestock Farmer
Your problem won’t be just space but freezing capacity. Most domestic freezers don’t cope with much more than 18-20kg of fresh meat at a time in their recommendation. I just had a bullock killed, was a little smaller than yours and we were fortunate to split it between 3 deepfreezers. Even then we had to move the meat around after 24 hours to ensure it was all freezing. As this was an unexpected beast for us I had to buy a new extra freezer as well. Bought a Liebherr freezer as they are the best spec. If both your 300L freezers are empty you should have enough space but watch the freezing capacity. As a rule of thumb I was told by my butcher to take LW x KO% x 2/3 for an estimate of final quantity.
As above turn meat after 24hrs, just remember if it's a tight fit when it goes in first you may struggle to get it all back in when semi frozen.
 

Whitepeak

Member
Livestock Farmer
Definitely try to freeze in batches, or spread between as many freezers as possible. If you just put it in one freezer as a lump the middle will rot before it gets chance to freeze.
We freeze over a couple of days (leaving the meat in a cold outhouse). We also partially freeze steaks on metal trays before bagging, makes it easier to separate later.
 

Hampton

Member
BASIS
Location
Shropshire
Sacrilidge mincing a braising steak....slow cooked in the oven it’s one of my faves
Not sure I said that. Big difference between best braising steak and stewing beef.
often you can have 50-100kg stewing beef.
I suppose my point is, decide what you want to eat and butcher accordingly. If you don’t want too many stews, mince more and make burgers.
If you prefer good steaks, eat the best braising steak as pieces of steak soon after butchering, not months down the line, it eats like a good rump steak.
 

unlacedgecko

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Fife
Not sure I said that. Big difference between best braising steak and stewing beef.
often you can have 50-100kg stewing beef.
I suppose my point is, decide what you want to eat and butcher accordingly. If you don’t want too many stews, mince more and make burgers.
If you prefer good steaks, eat the best braising steak as pieces of steak soon after butchering, not months down the line, it eats like a good rump steak.

im chewing my way through some short horn at the minute. The braising steak is being eaten as blue fried steak, and its better than many shop bought sirloins.
 
You probably need 2 chest freezers if you want to have it organized with room to get specific cuts out. It would also be worth trying to move on some of the bigger joints to people before you get them in the freezer. When I did a Devon heifer I got a load of banana boxes from the super market (they fit nicely in the chest freezer side-by-side) and put cuts in the boxes that way you aren't rifling through bags and messing stuff up so you never find anything again.
 

Wink

Member
Location
Hampshire
It’s best end of braising steak. Could be regional, it’s what the butcher who cuts my beasts calls it.
Thankyou. I'm certainly no beef expert but sounds like the chuck eye from the chuck in front of the fore rib which would be best Braising but are fantastic steaks in their own right close to the rib of beef. Full of flavour and a hell of a lot cheaper. Thankyou - likely an old school or regional term.
 

Wisconsonian

Member
Trade
Here in the US, meat from any respectable butcher will come back frozen. You'd only have to worry about dividing it up to keep from ruining the meat if you butchered your own. The issue is freezing it slowly will allow ice crystals to grow larger and break cell walls, then when the meat thaws more liquid will run off and you'll be left with dry, tough meat when it's cooked. If it's flash frozen, it will keep the ice crystal size to a minimum.

For the same reason, meat stays in better shape in a chest freezer than an upright, less air exchange when opening, so less freezer burn. And a mostly full freezer is better than mostly empty.
 

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