Butchering Beef

Learn how to humanely slaughter cattle and butcher your own beef. In this straightforward guide, Adam Danforth provides clear instructions and step-by-step photography of the entire butchering process, from creating the right preslaughter conditions through killing, skinning, keeping cold, breaking the meat down, and perfecting expert cuts. With plenty of encouragement and expert advice on food safety, packaging, and necessary equipment, this comprehensive guide has all the information you need to start butchering your own beef.

About the Author

Adam Danforth is the author of Butchering Chickens, Butchering Beef, and Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat, and Pork, which won both an IACP Award and a James Beard Award. Danforth trained at the professional meat processing program at SUNY Cobleskill, one of the only such programs in the United States, before going to work at Marlow and Daughters in New York City. He leads experiential workshops worldwide on butchery and meat science for venues such as the Stone Barns Center for Agriculture, the James Beard Foundation Chefs Boot Camp, Google, and the National Bison Association.

Danforth also consults and provides education to restaurants including Eleven Madison Park, Gramercy Tavern, Bazaar Meat, The Perennial, and Maude. He is the American ambassador for the Butchers Manifesto and a board member of the Chefs Collaborative and the Good Meat Project. Danforth lives in Ashland, Oregon. Temple Grandin is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human, as well as Thinking in Pictures, Humane Livestock Handling, Improving Animal Welfare, and The Autistic Brain.

Dr. Grandin's humane livestock facility designs have been adopted all over the world, and she is a consultant on animal welfare to several segments of the fast food industry. Her work has been featured on NPR, 60 Minutes, and The Today Show and in the New York Times and Time and Discover magazines. The story of her life was made into an Emmy Award-winning HBO movie titled Temple Grandin. Dr. Grandin is a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University.