Reading a cut sheet for the first time

The first time we hand a customer a cut sheet, they look at us like we asked them to interpret a tax form. Roast thickness in inches? Sausage seasoning? Bone-in or boneless? Keep the heart? It's a lot to decide on a single piece of paper that determines what's in your freezer for the next eight months.

Here's what a cut sheet is, why it exists, and how to fill one out without panicking.

What a cut sheet actually is

A cut sheet is a form, usually one or two pages, that tells the processor — the locker, the butcher, the abattoir, whatever the farm in your area calls it — exactly how to break down your animal. Half cow, whole hog, quarter beef, lamb, goat — every freezer share gets cut to specification, and the cut sheet is the specification.

The processor doesn't guess. They follow the cut sheet to the letter. If you say "1.25-inch ribeyes," you get 1.25-inch ribeyes. If you say "all the trim as ground, no sausage," you get no sausage and a lot more ground.

The farm hands you the cut sheet (paper or PDF), you fill it out, and the farm delivers it to the processor along with the animal. Some farms let you talk to the processor directly. Most prefer to be the go-between because they know what their animal looks like and they don't want a customer accidentally asking for cuts the animal can't produce.

Why your farmer needs it before kill day

Processing schedules are tight. Many USDA-inspected lockers are booked six to twelve months out. When kill day comes, your animal has to go in, get cut, get wrapped, get frozen, and get out — usually within two to three weeks. The processor can't wait on a customer who hasn't decided whether they want bone-in ham.

Most farms ask for the cut sheet two to four weeks before kill day. That gives them time to call the processor, confirm any unusual requests, and pre-fill the form. If your farm hasn't asked for your cut sheet a month out and your kill date is approaching, ask them about it.

The five decisions that matter most

A cut sheet looks busy, but five decisions drive almost the entire outcome.

1. Steak thickness. For beef, you'll be asked to pick a thickness for ribeyes, T-bones, sirloins, and other steaks. The default is usually 1 inch. We recommend 1.25 inches for ribeyes and T-bones — gives you a better sear without overcooking. For sirloins and round steaks, 0.75 to 1 inch is fine.

2. Roast size. Roasts are sold by weight, and you pick the size range. A 3-to-4-pound roast feeds 4 to 6 people. A 5-to-6-pound roast feeds a Sunday dinner with leftovers. Pick based on your household and your appetite for leftovers.

3. Ground beef package size. One-pound packages are the standard and the easiest to thaw and use. Two-pound packages save freezer space if you cook for a crowd. We've never met a customer who regretted picking 1-pound packages.

4. Bone-in or boneless. Bone-in roasts have more flavor and weigh more (you're paying per hanging pound, so heavier bone-in is more meat in your box). Boneless roasts are easier to cook and slice. We default to bone-in for the chuck and the shoulder, boneless for the round.

5. What to do with the trim. Every animal has trim — the meat that doesn't make a clean primal cut. You can ask for the trim as ground beef (the workhorse), as stew meat (1-inch cubes), or as sausage (ground and seasoned). On a hog, the trim usually goes to sausage or ground pork. On a beef, most goes to ground.

If you get those five right, the rest of the cut sheet is fine-tuning.

The pork-specific decisions

A hog cut sheet has two questions a beef sheet doesn't.

Cure and smoke. Pork can be cured and smoked at the locker. That's how you get bacon, ham, jowl bacon, smoked hocks, and smoked sausage. Curing costs extra (usually $0.75 to $1.50 per pound on top of the cut-and-wrap), and it adds a week or two to the processing timeline. Most customers cure the belly into bacon and the hams into smoked hams, and leave the chops and roasts fresh.

Sausage seasoning. Most lockers have a list of sausage seasonings: breakfast, Italian, chorizo, bratwurst, kielbasa, sweet, hot. Pick one or two. Don't try to spread the ground pork across six flavors — you'll end up with 1-pound packages of every flavor and no real stash of any of them.

The "don't forget" cuts

Three cuts that get missed if you don't ask for them:

• Oxtail and beef shank — usually go to the trash bin or the dog if you don't claim them. Both make excellent braising stock.
• Beef heart, liver, and tongue — most lockers will keep them if you ask. Beef heart in particular is one of the cheapest, leanest, most underrated cuts on the animal.
• Pork lard and leaf lard — if you bake, ask the locker to keep the back fat and the leaf fat separately. Render at home for the best pastry shortening you'll ever use.

If you don't want any of those, that's fine. But don't let them get thrown out without knowing.

Sausage, jerky, summer sausage, snack sticks

If the locker offers value-added products — summer sausage, snack sticks, jerky, hot dogs, brats — they cost more per pound but they save you time on a cured product you'd otherwise make at home. A 50-pound summer sausage order from your hog runs $150 to $250 on top of the base cut-and-wrap. Worth it if you eat summer sausage. Not worth it if you don't.

What to do if you've never done this

Ask the farm for their default cut sheet. Most farms have one they recommend for first-time customers — the standard thicknesses, the standard ground proportion, the standard cure choices. Use the default for your first share. Take notes during the year on what you wished you had more of, less of, or differently. Adjust next year.

You don't have to get it perfect the first time. The cut sheet is a starting point, not a final exam.

Browse freezer shares with farm-specific cut sheets on Pasture →