Buying an Augustus Ranch beef share is one of the most economical ways to fill your freezer with the healthiest, tastiest, and highest quality cuts of pasture-finished beef from Shiner, Texas. We've got four different options depending on your budget and freezer size.
Undoubtedly, our Whole and Half Beef Shares provide the best overall value and come with many types of beef cuts at a competitive price. A Quarter is also a great option for the money and, are a less daunting commitment. If you're looking to test the waters with a smaller overall volume and upfront investment, our Eighth will comfortably fit in a standard sized freezer that comes with most refrigerators.
Here’s all of the information you need to better understand beef shares and their unique economic and sustainable benefits.
What’s Included in the Different Types of Beef Shares?
Buying bulk beef from Augustus Ranch means you're going to get a variety of different cuts, some of which you may not be familiar with. The good news is that you really only need to think about two different types of cooking categories:
- Slow Cooking - cuts include chuck roast, brisket, short ribs, osso bucco (shank), stew meat, and oxtail (for whole beef shares). These cuts need low and slow cooking methods, like a crock pot recipe with red wine and vegetables. Cuts may differ slightly in exact length of cooking time, but you'll know they're done when they pass the fork tender test. When you can insert a fork into the meat and pull it out with relative ease (the meat will not hold onto to the fork and resist).
- Quick Cooking - steaks, steaks, and more steaks. We're talking ribeye, strip, tenderloin, and flat iron for the "high" range steaks (the most tender and expensive cuts), and all the "mid" range steaks, which have varying degrees of tenderness but can all be cooked the same. Cuts like sirloin, bavette, skirt, flank, top round, and more. Grilling, pan searing, or broiling are all great options.
Other considerations would be ground beef, which can be used for either quick or slow cooking recipes. Think burgers and tacos versus a simmering chili or meat sauce. Don't forget about the bones! Homemade bone broth cannot be compared to the watery store bought options. Once you discover how well it improves any slow cooked recipe, or get the health benefits from sipping warm bone broth with lemon and herbs, you'll understand just how good it really is.
We've got plenty of recipes to reference for all those delicious meals you'll be cooking, and we're always here for any questions you might have. You can check out these two articles to start: How To Cook Any Piece of Meat and How To Make Beef Bone Broth and Use It In Your Recipes.
How Much Meat and Freezer Space Needed for a Beef Share?
We've standardized our Bulk Beef Shares, which make it easy for planning purposes. Here are the details on each of the shares and how much freezer space we recommend to comfortably fit the meat while still having space to organize with easy access:
- Whole Beef Share: 400 lbs, 20 cubic feet of freezer space
- Half Beef Share: 200 lbs, 10 cubic feet of freezer space
- Quarter Beef Share: 100 lbs, 5 cubic feet of freezer space
- Eighth Beef Share: 50 lbs, 2.5 cubic feet of freezer space
As you can see, an Eighth Beef Share can fit inside a standard home refrigerator/freezer combo. Having some shelving will help organize the cuts so that you can access them with ease. That's why we prefer the stand-up freezer options. With a chest freezer, you might have to dig around to get to a particular cut. But either one works.
How To Get Your Beef Share Home
Buying bulk shares of local, pasture-finished beef is the best way to get the most bang for your buck. You pay a higher price upfront but will ultimately save a great deal of money in the long run, as the price-per-pound is lower compared to buying all the cuts individually. The bigger the share, the better the price. Consider splitting a whole or half with family or friends!
If you live in our home state of Texas and are within driving distance of Austin, San Antonio, or Houston, we offer free meetup options. We'll meet you at a pre-determined place and time as we can fit it into our schedule. There's usually one of us traveling through these places on a monthly basis.
If you’re farther away or even out-of-sate, we do offer shipping on our Eighth Beef Share. It ships in two of our large boxes and will end up frozen on your door step in 1-3 days via UPS. If you're interested in shipping a larger share, please contact us for a custom quote. It isn't cheap, but sometimes it's worth it for the quality we can offer.
