?'s about buying a share of beef page

[duckmama]

Little did I know until yesterday that DH knows someone who has a very small farm about 20 miles from us with grass fed cattle! Amazing what you can find when you start asking around. She will have a half size portion of a steer for us this spring.

For those who have bought a share of beef, any idea how long it will take a family of 3 to use a half of a steer? And how much room will I need in freezer space? We have a small chest-style freezer in our garage, and I'm betting we might need more space than that.

If possible, we're going to find someone to share half of our half and maybe only come away with a quarter, but if not, we're getting a half. I'm excited but boy that's a lot of beef!

[lizch]

Just starting on this adventure myself, so interested in the answers. Our "order has been filled" which I think is a euphemism for "your cow has been shot". It's aging at the butcher now, so expecting to have a freezer full (of 1/4, actually, since I'm splitting the share with a friend) sometime this month. I'm splitting an organic produce box with that same friend starting tomorrow--great food month!!

[duckmama]

Liz - we've just started receiving an every-other-week organic farm box too! Today will be my second delivery, and I'm always excited to see what shows up in the box! It's so fun!

Alice

[shrona]

We bought a 1/4 of huge cow (I think it was slightly over 900 pounds before slaughter.) It was dry aged for about 3 weeks, and the packaged meat JUST fit in our small outdoor chest freezer (maybe even had to put a few packages of ground beef in our indoor freezer.) The meat from our cow is so good, hope you find enough room and enjoy!

[nax]

Here is some info from a local ranch. I've yet to order from them but they include approximate freezer space needed for each portion of cow you buy.

http://34ranchmeats.com/index.php?op...id=6&Itemid=23

[kitana]

I come from a farm and for a family of 5 - we typically went through 1 beef and 2 hogs a year. We had a chest freezer that was ~7 ft long and waist height and it was packed! We had another smaller chest freezer (4 ft long) for the overflow. I'd say start with 1/4 and see how that treats you and then go 1/2 if that's not enough. We ate beef almost daily and had lunch and dinner at home, so it was a lot of meat.

[ElaineC]

I eat alot of beef, and 1/4 lasts me easily close to a year, esp if I also pick up pork or lamb at the market. I fit just over 100lbs of beef in my small freezer, which is somewhere between 5.5 and 6 cubic feet. My bigger freezer is around 15cu.ft, and easily fits a quarter of beef, a half hog and a half lamb. If its full, I can go a very long time without buying anything!

You'll never go back to supermarket beef again

[slesca]

I got a quarter last year and it lasted from March-October for a family of 3. It was about 100 lbs in the end. Though I still have a ton of liver which I can't quite bring myself to dig into. It took up more than half of my chest freezer. I'd estimate it's 3x5x3 or something like that?