My guess is backstrap & sirloin tip alone is 15% of total meat weight. We got 8%.
I was fortunate enough to fill my B List tag opening evening with a big ol dry cow
Im back home now and got the meat all taken of.
I thought it would be a good idea to weigh the quarters, as there are several threads discussing that
Here are the weights - bone in/leg cut off at knee
Loose meat [backstraps/tenderloins] - 23lbs
Front shoulder - 34 lbs each
Hind quarter - 51lbs each
Total = 193lbs
The meat is fresh and cool. Less than 24hrs from field to home This should give a good idea of what to expect
Four quarters all boned out = 23lbs of bones
170lbs net weight boneless meat
The big things that made me wonder was we get 3-4# of sirloin tip steaks. That seemed a little low.
Another question what cut tastes better of an elk, sirloin tip (front of leg bone) and round steak (behind leg bone)? I always thought the back (round) steak. Off my caribou this year the tip was amazing fresh - did not try round steaks to compare but was very very impressed with the tip steak - basically as good as backstrap but a little tougher.
Should of been a couple ribeye's in there and yes it does look they they may have ground the sirloins and all the rounds.
We got 200# of meat and it cost $654 ($3.27 per pound out the door) so I thought that was pretty good. Last year we got some and it tasted amazing.
Quinn, not all of it. You're confusing the "tenderloin" of an elk with what the filet cut on a beef is with the transition being where the porterhouse normally comes from. It wasn't listed as a steak cut and it should be there unless it was thrown into the grind pile. The hind quarter is split on the second to last rib and those two are hanging ribs attached to the sternum by tissue and weak cartilage connections, so a couple of ribeyes on a hind, sort of if you want to call them that.
Wow! That's about 3 times more than I've ever paid, for a similar yield.
I guess you'd have to be pretty liberal with how much you trim or leave out in the hills for the coyotes to eat too. If an elk carcass weighs 400#, then you should get anywhere from 275# to 300# back. What you choose to keep after that is entirely up to you.
A big bull elk will yield up to 40 lbs of neck meat.
This year I took a 6 pt about 2.5 years old. about a 260 bull. I ended up with 130 lbs of grind meat. Just ground 24 of it yesterday.
?? No, its about right. 1/4 of the wt. in head, hide and lower legs, 1/4 in guts, 1/4 in bones and 1/4 in usable meat which includes the neck and ribs. I always end up with a bit more at the end because of adding 15-20% fat to the grind.
Lost Arra's Link
68-75% boneless yield from a field dressed animal is incredible. Are you keeping the liver, heart, kidneys and tongue?
You can download this publication (pdf) and it gives some interesting numbers.
? If you're paying a dollar a pound for beef you may be eating horse
Can you share the butcher that you are getting good beef from for $1.08 a pound?
Makes me glad I fill my freezer with elk and venison!
I do have "connections". This was a "wild" range cow (bull calf), that a landowner told me I could have, so I let my Wife hunt it. I didn't raise it, but I did process it, and it was amazing!
A 400 lb elk live weight doesn't matter. Carcass, or hanging weight, only matters for yield.
Yes, I grind roasts, t-bones, sirloin, ribeyes, rounds, sirloin tips, flank steak, tri-tip, Denver, sirloin, flat irons, ranch steak, delmonico’s, chuck, etc. It all depends on how the customer prefers to have their beef cut.
Most forgot they have pig fat added to ground burger - and some cuts might have bone in. I have found if you trim good - not great but good, you get about 20% of live weight in boneless meat after butchering, trimming and cleaning.
Anyone who gets 30% is doing some funny math or has a scale that is wrong. It just does not happen. Sorry about asking about cow on an elk forum! I used my knowledge of elk to estimate numbers hence why it is here - and I suspect % will be the same for an elk vs. a moo cow. Or, after a Utah elk hunt with tons of domestic cows my buddy calls domestic cows "pooh" cows instead of moo cows. Still cracks me up!
Rocky D's Link
“ In 2003, a couple of studies were done at the University of Wyoming to answer this very question. Researchers were determined to measure how much boneless meat a typical animal should give you. In the study conducted on Rocky Mountain Elk, bulls had an average field-dressed weight of 437 lbs and cows had an average of 339 lbs. A field-dressed carcass is an animal that has been gutted with the lower legs and windpipe removed but still has the head and hide on it. Skinning and removing the head drops about 73 lbs off the average field-dressed weight of a bull elk and about 45 lbs off a cow elk. Researchers reported that bull elk yielded an average of 218 lbs of boneless lean meat and cows yielded an average of 169 lbs of boneless lean meat. Lean meat is defined as meat with less than 1.4 % fat. Researchers were purposely trimming off the game fat, and the meat was also aged for 14 days before all the final weighing was done.”
In CO a 2.5 yr old would be a rag horn 4 or 5 pointer. A 3.5 yr old would be a 5 or small 6 point and never make P&Y if I shot him....topping out at about 250 where I hunted around treeline/continental divide. Other areas may grow them bigger.
As per weights and yield, I'd go with cnelk and the WY researcher data. Corresponds with my qtr and meat weights from a lot of CO elk.
Backstrap and tenderloins = 26#
Hind quarters = 40# each
Trim (neck, shoulders, misc) = 90#
Total boneless meat = 196#
Most other bulls I've killed have yielded over 200# of boneless meat but I don't have the breakdowns. The backstraps and tenderloins on my 2021 Arizona bull weighed 32#. He was a very large bodied bull and his skull is significantly larger than my other bull Euro mounts. The rest of his meat is still in game bags in my freezer so I haven't weighed it yet.
The processor did an amazing job, the round, backstraps are phenomenal and the ground meat with 10% fat ground in makes amazing burgers, chili and Shepard's pie! (To name a few). I am fortunate who has a wife who loves wildgame almost if not more than I do!
I think your outfitter might have been a little "optimistic" on the weight estimates. It might be possible for a mature herd bull to weigh a half a ton but I think it's extremely rare. Also if you look at the study that RockyD posted above it shows that the entire hide, head and antlers weigh about 73 pounds. If you're only packing out the front half of the hide (cape), head and antlers it would probably weigh 20-30 pounds less, so around 50 pounds. Granted, those were "average" sized bulls.
The attached picture is me packing out the head, cape and antlers from a 360" gross herd bull. It was also the largest bodied bull I have ever killed or seen in person. This load was heavy but it wasn't 120-140 pounds, more like 80 pounds give or take...
I also didnt mention rib meat. Didnt take either. Totally within the Regs
Rear 1/4's 57lbs each
Front shoulders 29lbs each
Loose meat 56lbs
228lbs total
After processing 178lbs boneless meat. I didn't take rib meat or any organs
