Just hit my 500th beef tenderloin trimmed in 8 months

I started tracking every primal I break down back in January, mostly out of curiosity. Today I hit 500 tenderloins and I honestly didn't think I'd get there that fast with my route schedule. How do you guys stay sharp when you're cranking through repetitive cuts day after day?

3 comments

3 Comments

riley_miller251mo ago

Wait, aren't tenderloins typically trimmed before they get broken down into steaks? Seems like you're counting the whole primal itself, not individual trimmed cuts.

-1

sullivan.spencer1mo ago

Yeah totally, @riley_miller25, I've had butchers tell me the same thing. They weigh the whole tenderloin before trimming and that's what they use for cost, but the actual steaks you get are way less after all the silver skin and chain meat come off.

fiona_murphy16d ago

Used to think it was all the same, that what you paid for was what you got. But this explains a lot about why home cooks get so frustrated with tenderloin. You buy a whole one expecting 24 ounces of steak, but after trimming you're lucky to get 16 ounces of actual usable meat. Butchers know the yield loss is built into the primal weight, so they aren't cheating you, it's just the reality of how the cut works. That silver skin adds up fast, plus the chain meat is almost always sold separately. Makes way more sense now why the per steak price seems so high.