Half Steer
If you are looking to buy half a cow Lancaster PA you’ve come to the right place! It can be really hard to picture how much half a cow is, so this will break down the details of ordering a half steer.
Ordering beef in bulk has many advantages, and one of them is the price advantage! When you buy beef directly from a farmer in bulk you are able to stock up your freezer at a very reasonable cost per pound with a really high-quality beef that is difficult to find in stores.
When you buy half a cow Lancaster PA from our farm it simply means you are ordering half a steer that is customizable to the way your family eats. So here’s what the process looks like: after you place a deposit for that half, you will be able to fill out the custom order form for your half of beef. Kelsey will gladly walk through this with you to help you get what works best for you and your family. Before you fill it out, she will want to get a good idea of how your family eats. Do you eat mainly ground beef? Do you love steaks, and do you eat a lot of roasts? This will give guidance as you fill out the order form to optimize it for your family. Once the order form is filled out and submitted to Kelsey, she will look over to finalize everything and submit it to the butcher.
If you buy half a cow Lancaster PA from Rock Haven Family Farms, one of the biggest advantages is that we can guarantee that you get the cuts and thickness you’re looking for. One of the top priorities for people is the loin section, which has the most tender steaks. Out of this section you can decide if you’d like steaks with the bone in, which is the T-bone and porterhouse steaks, or off the bone which is filet mignon and New York strip steaks. You can also decide your steak thickness, whether you’d like it three-quarter inch thick, 1 inch, 1 1/4, or 1.5 inches thick. Typically most people request 1” steaks because that allows the steak to be thick enough to handle the high heat of a grill, but still provides a large number of steaks. If you order 1 ½ inch steaks, they will be premium steaks, but you will only get half the number of steaks as someone who orders ¾ inch steaks because their steaks are half as thick as yours.
Once your order form is submitted to the butcher, Kelsey does all of the behind-the-scenes work to get your beef processed and ready for you. Once the beef is ready she will schedule a time for you to come and pick up your beef at the butcher shop. This is when you’ll finalize paying for the beef and butchering and are able to take this amazing beef home! For the final payment we accept cash and all major credit cards. You will need to bring 2 forms of payment, one for Rock Haven Family Farms for the beef, and one for the butcher for the butchering costs. You will receive an email before you come with the remaining balance for the beef and an estimate of what the butchering costs should be. You can feel free to bring boxes and coolers along for your beef, but if you don’t have any, the butcher has cardboard boxes that work great for taking it home. The great thing about getting the beef at the butcher is that they have commercial freezers in which they flash freeze the beef on trays, and after they are frozen solid they are transferred to boxes and stored in the freezer for the next day or two until you pick it up. This means the meat is frozen really well and is able to take long trips. We have customers who routinely make the trip from New Jersey without a problem, and if you order half a steer, you only are making the trip about once a year.
To be able to picture how much beef this is, if you order half a cow Lancaster PA from Rock Haven Family Farms a half steer is going to be approximately 260 pounds of beef in your freezer. It is a custom order, but if you keep as many steaks and roasts as possible, you will have approximately 40% of your beef in ground beef, 30% as roasts, and 30% as steaks and miscellaneous cuts like the beef short ribs.
Custom orders can mean a lot of different things, but here on our farm it means that out of the beef that you order, you can customize how you’d like each cut of beef. For example one of the sections is the sirloin section, which means out of that section you can decide if you’d like to keep it as steaks, which most people do, or if your family doesn’t eat many steaks you can always turn it into ground beef or chip steak. This means you can take each cut of beef and choose how you’d like it. If you only want a few roasts we can do that, but unfortunately we can’t take half a steer and turn it into all steaks, it sure would be nice if we could though!
According to the U.S. department of agriculture, Americans eat approximately 55 pounds of beef per year, which means a half a steer will last a little over a year for a family of four. So a half is a great way to fill your freezer with beef for the next year and there is nothing more convenient than being able to go to the freezer for a dinner!
If you have the freezer space, it is great to buy half a cow Lancaster PA versus a quarter steer because you get the advantage of the price break of going from a quarter to a half, and you can guarantee that you will get your steak thickness and loin section preferences. Most times on a quarter we are able to match up orders so people can get what they want, but with a half it is guaranteed.
If you are looking to buy half a cow Lancaster PA we would be honored to serve you! We truly enjoy getting to connect with each of our customers and helping you get the best cuts for your family! Give us a call today at 717-305-1315 so we can begin the process with you to fill your freezer with local, wholesome beef for your family!