Would you like to take a walk with me and see exactly how we get our meat out here on the station. Of course we can’t just pop down to the local butcher shop for some steak and snags, so we have to kill and butcher all of our own meat. I use the term “we” quite loosely. I mean everyone else – I just take photos! ha ha ha. So, lets do this…
I will spare you the gory details about the killing… but naturally that is the first step. After this they either do a bush kill or a gallows kill. With a bush kill they take the cuts of meat from the beast out in the paddock and throw it on the back of the ute. Like this…
With a gallows kill they bring it back in on the manitou and use a chainsaw to quarter it. Either way, they both then hang in the cold room for as long as they can, usually a week, before it is then broken down.
Mr Chardy and Georgie then break it down. Aileen – our wonderful old cook – used to do all of this herself, as well as cook. I have no idea how she did it all. What a legend. Anyway, back to the story. It generally takes nearly a full day to break down the beast, bag the meat, corn the beef, make the mince and pump out 40 odd kilo’s of sausages.
To make corned beef a mixture of salt, kwik kurit, brown vinegar and water is made up in a big tub and pumped into the pieces of silverside and brisket with an electric pump…
The off cuts and crappy/tough pieces of meat are minced up. This is then used for mince and to make sausage mince. Then it is time to whip out the sausage maker and pump out 2,076 odd sausages. Ok that might be a slight exaggeration but you get the gist don’t you. Mr Chardy’s sausages are second to none, he uses a mixture of sausage meal, diced tomatoes, onion, oregano, garlic & tomato paste – they are super yummy.
All the meat is then stored in our big freezer cold room ready for the cook, oh I mean me, to turn into tasty meals for the crew. The corned beef is kept in the cold room ready to cook when needed.
So there you go, a little lesson on butchering. What do you think?
What are your favourite cuts of beef?
How close is your nearest butchery?
Do you kill and butcher your own meat?
My brother Ant did a home kill a few weeks ago when an animal fell in the yards and broke it’s leg. He cut me wonderful thick slices of osso bucco!
We were buying half sides of beasts some years ago, but I kept winding up with cuts that never got eaten and became UFOs (unidentified frozen objects!) 😝
Ha ha ha, the old UFO… I am hearing you!
My in-laws have a property and on the October long weekend we butchered a whole wagyu cow; so I know this process and how much work goes into it!
Hi Mish, that is fantastic, how yummy! And yes, so much work.
That is awesome! The cost of beef is astronomical, I looked into buying a side of beef but decided freezing 40kgs of meat wasn’t going to be that much cheaper and I’d rather just buy as I need, as I tend to buy cheaper cuts anyway. My favourite is scotch fillet, if I’m going to spend on steaks, they need to be awesome. Otherwise wise I just slow cook chuck steak (my second favourite after scotch) or use mince, or buy sausages. Steak is definitely the splurge for us.
So great to hear, we really do take our meat for granted up here… nothing to crack out the fillet steak. We had some last night from this killer and it was absolutely delicious. I love to slow cook chuck as well, it is my favourite for beef curry! Roast beef on the menu tonight.
We are fortunate to have one of the best butchers around just a few minutes away. I so take for granted what they do. Thanks for sharing another slice of your life!
That is unreal that you have a butcher only a few minutes away… you live in the hub don’t you! Thanks for reading!! 🙂
I smirked at the photo of the meat in the back of the ute and thought how it would appall my vegetarian friends.
We would always have very finely sliced fillet steak (cooked for about a millisecond) and eggs for breakfast the morning after the beast was killed. Butchering was never my favourite chore (seemed to take forever) but it certainly taught me good lessons on recognizing cuts of meat in the butcher shop.
Ha ha ha, love that photo too Judy!!! It sure does take forever, and the clean up isn’t pretty is it.
I grew up on home kills…. now I work in the meat industry (Quality Assurance)….. and just quietly, for all the quality assurance / quality control that has been developed over the years, all the regulations that must be met, all the paperwork that has to be meticulously maintained and the ridiculous amounts of money paid to be a part of all 23547 industry bodies to produce into the right markets (along with the money producers pay as well!!)…. I would prefer my meat straight from out of the paddock! 🙂
ABSOLUTELY!!!!
Wow Miss Chardy, that is so interesting for a city person to read….i had no idea how much work was involved, but then i guess i’ve probably never really given it too much thought while choosing my beef in Coles….in fact, if you guys get all that done in a day its truly amazing!! It wouldn’t surprise my hubby as he is a bit of a country boy, but me- yes. 😊 In many ways, out there, you all are very fortunate to have access to so much – incl so many tasty steaks!! Looks like your menu is sorted for the next while!! Yummo! X
So glad I could open your eyes to the beef industry a little bit Miss T!!! 🙂 Go to Woolworths… that’s where our beef ends up! Yes, we are definitely very very fortunate to have all of that fresh, home grown beef.
I remember as a kid we had a HUGE freezer outside in the sheds with every sort of meat in it, gosh I miss those days. Red meat, especially leg of lambs are redick expensive. xxx
It is a bit of a shock when we go away and have to buy meat… don’t realise how lucky we are.
Bring back memoies as we always killed our own. When I lived at Bedourie we were invited out to the stations and they would give us a good suply of meat which was awesome, made the best soup with the beef bones.
Nothing beats a good batch of home killed beef