Beef Breakdown — Hind Quarters; What Are They?
Updated: Jan 11, 2022
What does a quarter beef include? In the drawing above, the front is to the left: the front quarter consists of the chuck, shank, brisket, rib, and short plate. The hindquarter, or "booty quarter," is to the right in this picture, and consists of the loin, the flank, and the round. No doubt about it, the hindquarter is the premium beef. Why? Pat yourself on the lower back, fanny, and thigh—those are the most premium steaks! (We also offer a front quarter, or a split quarter option.)
The rear quarter consists of three major "primal chunks": the loin, the flank and the round. One of the pleasures of ordering your own quarter of beef is getting your favorite steaks cut to just the right thickness, just the right portion size, trimmed just the way you like them, bone-in or boneless as you prefer, and packaged for your household size. While this may seem daunting at first glance, it's actually easier than it sounds. (And we have Farmer's Chrissie's standard favorite cuts available as our "1/8th rear/steaks and burgers" package if you just don't want to mess with it.) Below we'll walk you through the quarter beef cut list for a hindquarter.
The hindquarter contains all the most tender, premium, high-dollar-value cuts of beef but from Kookoolan Farms these are only $1.20/lb. more compared to our split quarter cost. Not only do you get the most premium steaks in a hindquarter, but you also get to specify your own quarter beef cuts with a custom hindquarter (whereas with a split quarter no customization is possible). So yes, it's more expensive than a split quarter but less so than you'd think, with far more of the premium cuts. (Check out our guide to freezer meats, which describes ALL of our beef packages in detail!)
A front quarter, mostly burger, runs about $990. For the same weight, a hindquarter runs about $1200, or 20% more. In general, retail steaks are far more than 20% higher priced compared to ground beef, as you'll see below. (Imagine getting sirloins and T-bones for only 20% more than the price of ground beef!) We also offer the hindquarter in 1/8th and 1/16th portions for those with smaller budgets or smaller freezers. The smaller portion sizes in these small shares make them ideal for one- or two-person households, and the 1/16th fits just on the door of a standard-size household refrigerator/freezer.
Loin Primal Section
The loin section can be cut as Porterhouse and T-bone steaks, any thickness or can be cut as New York Strip steaks and tenderloin. The tenderloin in turn can be cut as one roast, as a few thick steaks, or as filet mignon medallions. With a custom quarter, it's your choice!
The Loin primal section boasts extremely tender cuts that can be prepared quickly, with no need for moist heat or long cooking times. These are great for quick meals: sauté, pan-fry, broil, pan broil, or grill these steaks for quick, easy, and super-delicious weeknight meals or easy, elegant entertaining. When 100% grass-fed steaks are available in stores, you may see individual steaks from this category selling for $18 to $30 a pound:
Porterhouse Steak—a very popular steak cut from the rear end of the short loin; the name originated from the days when it was served in public alehouses that also served a dark beer called porter. The porterhouse consists of both tenderloin and strip steak. The tenderloin can be butchered separately as filet mignon.
T-bone Steak—cut from the middle section of the short loin; similar to the porterhouse steak but a bit smaller and containing a smaller piece of the tenderloin; usually grilled or pan-fried. Today I called four different New Seasons stores and two Whole Foods stores, and grass-fed t-bone steaks are not available at all, at any price.
Tenderloin—often considered the most tender cut of beef; responds well to sauces, meaning the meat does not overpower the flavor of the sauce. It can be cut as the whole strip for a tenderloin roast, or into individual steaks or medallions for filet mignon.
Sirloin Primal Chunk
One Sirloin steak can serve up to 3 people and sirloins are excellent for entertaining and leftovers.
These tender cuts also respond well to sautéing, pan-frying, broiling, pan-broiling, or grilling. 100% grass-fed sirloin steaks run $14 to $18/lb. in stores -- when they're available.
Sirloin Steaks—"top sirloin" and "sirloin tip" steaks or roasts are available in a variety of boneless and bone-in cuts, any thickness. Also makes outstanding tender, first-quality kebab or stir-fry meat.
Sirloin Tip Roast—excellent when dry roasted or marinated
Flank Primal Chunk
This meat is lean, muscular, and very flavorful. Flank is primarily used for flank steaks, London Broil, and rolled flank steaks. It can also be used for kabobs, bavette, skirt steak, fajita, or stir-fry meat.
Flank Steak—this steak has a great flavor, and should be sliced thin against the grain for maximum tenderness.
Round Primal Chunk ("top round" and "bottom round")
The "bottom round" section is an ideal source for stew cubes and pot roasts.
The round consists of lean meat well-suited to long, moist cooking methods and is the least expensive primal of the hindquarter.
Top Round—this is the most tender part of the round; it can be prepared as a pot roast or cut into thick London Broil steaks AKA top round steaks for braised dishes
Rump Roast—a very popular cut for pot roast, but can also be roasted at low temperatures
Manhattan steak, San Antonio steak, sirloin tip steak, or tri-tip roast
Cube steak, AKA tenderized round steak, is mechanically tenderized by pounding with a perforated hammer (no chemicals or additives). This makes the meat much better suited to quick cooking methods such as grilling. Or you can have the round made into stew cubes, fajita strips, or ground beef.
Scraps and Trimmings
Your choice: stew meat, and/or ground beef. In any beef package, from 1/16th to a half or whole, whether from front or back, generally, you can expect about 35% to 60% ground meat and/or stew meat, depending on the other cuts that you select.
Note that one of the reasons most people have for buying 100% grass-fed meats is the Omega 3 fatty acids. Those are located, well, in the fat. So why would you not want as many Omega 3 fatty acids as possible in your ground beef, especially if you are trying to reduce the percentage of simple carbohydrates in your diet? Our standard ground beef runs about 20% fat/80% lean. One of the easiest, most delicious, ways to incorporate more "good fats" in your diet is to choose a custom half or quarter beef and have the ground beef made up with the maximum fat content. Not only is it more juicy and delicious, and not only does it contain more of the Omega 3 fatty acids you're looking for, but these fats have no extra charge in our beef. In other words, 40 pounds of higher-fat ground beef costs you no more compared to 30 pounds of lean ground beef.
When you buy half a hindquarter, which we call a "1/8th/Rear Steaks & Burgers" share," we've already chosen the cuts for you. Our "1/16th Rear/Steaks & Burgers" share is exactly the same, just half as much meat - the sixteenth will fit just on the door of your standard household refrigerator/freezer.
A quarter beef fills two blue Ikea bags - this is about five cubic feet of freezer space. A 1/8th share fills one blue Ikea bag. These days, Kookoolan Farms beef no longer comes to you in the Ikea bags, although they're still helpful to visualize the volume of meat. Any quarter beef fills about four of our new boxes.
This is a whole lamb in a standard household freezer. A 1/8th beef share takes just about exactly the same amount of space, 2.5 cubic feet. A 1/16th share (a quarter of a quarter) fits just on the freezer door of a standard household refrigerator/freezer.
Bottom Line on Pricing
So how many pounds of beef in a quarter cow? Altogether, for a 1/8th rear with an average/typical 100-pound hanging weight, you'll pay $715. This will typically yield about 66 pounds of finished meat, or $715/66 pounds = about $10.83/lb. — what some places are charging for 100% grass-fed ground beef alone, but you'll get roughly 40% premium steaks and 60% premium ground beef. For a 1/4th rear with an average/typical 200-pound hanging weight, you'd pay $1430 and could expect about 130 lbs of finished meat. So yes: you really do save money when you buy by the eighth or quarter. When you consider that grass-fed bones for soup run $4/lb. and tallow runs $2/lb. and you get bones, fat, and organ meats at no extra charge with your Kookoolan Farms beef share, it makes you wonder why anyone is still buying grass-fed beef by-the-cut at the grocery store.
"Hanging weight" means the weight of the front quarter when the quarter is hanging in one piece on a hook, on the day it was killed. On average, a quarter of beef weighs 185 pounds (this is true whether we’re talking front quarter, rear quarter, or split quarter). Some weight is lost to evaporation during the 10 to 12 days of dry aging. More is lost to gristle, bones, and scraps during butchering.
Overall, beef generally yields about 60-66%, which means that when it’s been trimmed nicely and all the gristle and gross parts are discarded, you’ll end up with about 60-66% of the initial hanging weight as wrapped meat, or 185 X 0.66 = about 110-120 pounds of finished meat, not counting soup bones, tallow, and organ meats. (You can halve all these numbers for our 1/8th shares.) Any quarter cow will require about five cubic feet of freezer space to store; any 1/8th about 2.5 cubic feet. Beef keeps well in the freezer for two or more years.
Please feel welcome to call us at (503) 730-7535 or email us at myfarmer@kookoolanfarms.com — we're always happy to answer your questions.
ABOUT US
Kookoolan Farms was established in October 2005. Our founder, Farmer Chrissie, was a near-vegetarian engineer at Intel Corporation with severe anemia who needed to start eating meat, but could not find any 100% grassfed beef or any farm she wanted to buy beef from. Kookoolan Farms was founded in a fit of temper tantrum when she realized she’d just have to figure out how to do it herself. That DIY spirit and determination to do things the right way has resonated with our customers across the years. Both Chrissie and many of our customers have seen a return to health by eating more healthy fats and proteins, and reducing or eliminating simple carbohydrates AKA sugar and white flour.
We have had literally thousands of happy customers all over Oregon and Washington for our 100% grass-fed beef, 100% grassfed lamb, pastured heirloom pork, pasture-raised organic-fed chickens, pastured free-range turkeys, premium wild-caught seafood, and wine and mead. We prefer to let our customers tell you about us: you can check out our reviews on google, facebook or yelp. We look forward to helping you fill your freezer with premium grass-fed meats and wild-caught seafood from a local farm you can trust. We are at your service by phone or email if you have additional questions as you’re considering our grassfed beef, and when you're ready to order. We look forward to helping you fill your freezer with premium grass-fed meats and wild-caught seafood from a local farm you can trust. We are at your service by phone or email if you have additional questions as you’re considering our grassfed beef, and when you're ready to order.
SHIPPING
Wherever you are in Oregon or Washington, Kookoolan Farms has beef for sale near me! In 2022 we started shipping frozen meat and we offer delivery to some areas. Just call (503) 730-7535, or email myfarmer@kookoolanfarms.com, we’ll figure out how to make it work!
Customers from Portland Oregon Salem Hillsboro Beaverton Lake Oswego Cornelius West Linn Oregon City King City Tualatin Gresham Tigard Wilsonville Milwaukie Maywood Park Wood Village Multnomah Village Hillsdale Happy Valley Sherwood Troutdale Canby Newberg McMinnville Gaston Yamhill Carlton Gladstone Fairview Banks Vancouver Estacada Scappoose Sandy North Plains Molalla Damascus St Helens Saint Helens Camas Washington Tacoma Washington Olympia Lakewood Centralia Chehalis Castle Rock Kelso Woodland Vancouver Keizer Kaiser Kaizer Corvallis Oregon Coast
Please feel welcome to call us at 503-730-7535, or to email us at myfarmer@kookoolanfarms.com—we're always happy to answer your questions.
