Top Sirloin. The Breakdown.

 In celebration of Memorial Day, and my income tax return, I thought it'd be great to document the breakdown of a Top Butt. This was by far the hardest cut of meat for me to master and I've done the cutting tests / yield-to-margin tests to prove that done correctly, this is the most profitable (and enjoyable - to me) way of breaking this primal down. A great deal of variety can be found in this primal, and it literally took me years to decipher the intricacies. 

       The Top Sirloin is a primal that comes from the top of the steer's butt, which is why you'll also see this referred to as the 'Top Butt'. Very Scientific. Anyhow - This primal houses a few secrets including the Brazilian cut, the Picana, (Culotte, Rump Cap, many names), Top Sirloin Steaks and a nice Chateaubriand - type roast that makes excellent portion-sized steaks. 

Starting with the bottom-left of the primal, where the muscle has been cut with the grain, is the beginning of the Culotte. This muscle extends from the Bottom Round, wrapping its way down and around the femur but is most tender towards top butt.  In the center of the primal you can see the beginning of the Petite Sirloin Roast, and hidden behind a veil of heavy tissue and silver - Literally where the steer's leg meets the hip - lays the Top Sirloin. 

The first step of trimming down the Top Butt is getting rid of the heavy bone tissue - don't add this to your trimmings, discard this stuff. 

Removing the 'hard break' is just like removing silver skin, though it's much more dense, the principal the same. 

Work the tip of your knife under the tissue and push forward at a slight angle. Finish the stroke by flipping the knife towards you, pulling the tissue taught and cutting it away. 

This is nice, tender meat - when you're trimming the roast down, try not to gouge the meat. Remove only the inedible tissues. 

This triangular muscle grouping on top of the roast isn't terrible, but it makes better trimmings than steak... remove as much of this as you'd like. 

For the untrained eye, this picture makes it difficult to see, but there's a band of 'bubble gum that form in the Thoracic Vertebrae (At the neck and Chuck), runs through the Rib Primal, Shortloin and ends in the Top Butt. This little bit is the last of it, so I usually trim enough meat from the top of it to open a space for my knife to get underneath it to clear it away. 

Expose the meat, but again - do not gouge.

You can follow the fat down and around the Sirloin until you reach the Culotte, at which point just clear the fat away from the top. 

Now to separate the Picana from the heart of the Sirloin. Once the fat is cleared away, the seam is very easy to find and separating these two muscle is a fairly effortless task. However,  it's also very easy to go too far and remove more fat than you need to from the Top Sirloin. When you're pealing the Sirloin away, locate the outline of the Culotte and cut it away as soon as it ends, leaving the fat on to rest of the Sirloin. 

Because of this cut's triangular shape, it's mistakenly referred to as the Tri-Tip, however, that is all together different than the Culotte. 

To clean the Picana / Culotte, begin by removing the silver skin. 

After removing the silver skin, clear away any undesired fat and shape the muscle up but cleaning the edges. 

Once cleaned, you can do whatever you want - roast the muscle whole, cut for kabobs, or cut steaks. Whatever you choose to do, the cooking method will be the same - Hot and fast. 

The line on the right side of the muscle that runs parallel to your current line of sight outlines the Petite Sirloin. You can either seam this muscle out, or cut straight down - either way, this line is your marker. 

This time, I cut straight down to separate the muscle in two. 

Trim away and silver and clean the muscle to your preference. 

Tie the roast for steaks... 

... and cut your steaks - this roast yielded 6 evenly sized steaks. 

For the Top Sirloin, clear away any gristle and silver. 

Once you've trimmed away the gristle, make your face cut about two inches from the hip-end of the Sirloin. 

The picture is a little rough, but this gives you and idea of what it should look like. 

After facing, cut your Top Sirloin Steaks. This roast yielded 5 Top Sirloins. Nice!

And there you have it. The whole Top Butt cost me about $75 - untrimmed it weighed around 9.25#, and here's the bounty. There's about 1.5# worth of Culotte / Picana , 2.25# worth of Petite Sirloin steaks and 4.25# worth of Top Sirloin.
Invest in some some heavy duty butcher paper and this will last 6 months or more in the freezer. If I bought all of this at retail, the price would have been significantly more, plus processing meat is incredibly fun for me, especially at home.

Thanks for sticking around through my dormancy - next post will likely be a tutorial for bringing old knives back from the dead, reconditioning them and a quick lesson on knife sharpening.

Reece.  

Berkshire Hog. Breakdown for Dry Curing.

Location: Niederwald, Texas - Salt and Time HQ

I've had the pleasure of meeting, and working with, Ben and Bryan from Salt and Time for a few months now, and the day this breakdown happened has been the highlight.. Let me take a moment to say that Ben Runkle and Bryan Butler are true artisans. They've got a good thing going and in time, will have a REALLY good thing going, but I'll let them spill those beans...

The hog that's being broken down in this photo-set is one of superior quality to anything I've ever worked with - The first time I've even touched a heritage-breed hog: Berkshire. 

The process of removing the Tenderloin is fairly simple; remove the outer layer of fat, start at the butt of the Tenderloin - located at the beginning of the Aitch bone. Once the connection to the Aitch bone is severed, simply grip the butt and pull the tenderloin away. 

To Remove separate the Hind-Quarter from the rest of the hog, cut through the meat underneath the second-to-last vertebrae from the curve marked by the tail. Once the meat is cut... 

Before you remove the Ham, seam-out the Flank. Identifying the muscle groupings is hard for beginners, but once your eyes have been trained, this is simple to do.

You can see the Ham really taking shape!

Flip the primal 180 degrees to sever the vertebrae. This takes some strength to lift the hindquarter, but the motion is relatively effortless. 

Clean the Ham up and store in the cooler for further processing. Remember - temperature is key!

On the bottom right, you can see the beginnings of the Loin and Belly - hanging off to the bottom left, you can see the Flank (major muscle in the diaphragm).

Beautiful meat. 

At the bottom of the Spare Ribs, the breast is connected by cartilage that's easy to cut with a knife. No saw just yet...

Now to remove the Coppa and Palleta - In the same fashion as the Ham, count the ribs and mark your place.

Cut through the 'boneless' portion of the meat until you reach the bone...

You'll be working in multiple angles, but the actual cut should stay constant - you want to avoid fraying the meat as much as possible.

Once you reach the bone...

Continue between the ribs until all of the meat has been cut through. 

Then flip it over. Again... Absolutely beautiful. 

Now's time to work through the rest of the cartilage along the bottom of the ribs.

Once the cartilage is severed, work the piece away from the Belly, this is a quick, but precise motion - the less cells you expose, the better for dry-curing. 

This piece, once removed, can be further processed - set it back in the cooler until you decide what you want to do with it.

To begin the process of removing the Belly, mark a line on either side of the Loin just past the kernals of each side. 

The line you just marked is meant to guide your saw, so that you don't.... mess up. 

Saw through the bone... not the meat - Saws tear meat to shreds, they are to be used only when necessary. 

Any task your knife is capable of performing, use it. 

Bone in Loin; Bone in Bellt. The ribs on the left are the Baby Back Ribs, to the right are the Spare Ribs. 

To remove the membrane that rests between the Hog's Offal and the actual ribs/rib-meat, guide your steel between the vein on the fore-side of the rib and the membrane itself. From bottom to top, sever the connection. 

Once severed, grasp the membrane with one hand and firmly guide your finger through the rest of it. Again - Relatively effortless. 

Removing the Spare Ribs is pretty simple - let the pictures be your guide.

Before the Belly is done - there's a layer of fat that lays between the muscle grouping and the animal's nipples. Cut this away - notice the angle of the knife as it compares with the Belly. 

The hint of blood is quite faint in the picture, but to expand on the process of removing the membrane from the ribs; starting at the spine-side of the rib, press down and force what blood remains in the vein and follow the rib all the way down. This motion will force out any remaining blood and at the same time, re-opens the vein - this is where you guide your steel into to free the membrane. 

Now to bone-out the Loin. I've covered this in previous posts, so the details here will suffer a bit, but I'm assuming that if you're breaking down a whole hog, you certainly know how to bone-out a loin. 

The key difference in boning these guys out in a retail environment compared to the Norcino-style is that in retail, a lot of money is in the Baby Back ribs - it's a good thing to leave a bunch of meat on the bone.. for purposes regarding Salumi and Charcuterie, the muscle itself needs to be as intact as possible. The more exposed cells on the muscle, the more of an area harmful bacteria has to operate. 

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Saw the spine off of the ribs to make Baby Back ribs that anyone can easily cut through to enjoy - put these guys in the cooler and keep with the breakdown. 

Very gently remove the 'tail' of the loin, leaving the clear membrane intact. 

That's pretty much it, for now - Further processing will come later - Plenty of secrets to share. 

Thanks as always for visiting, there's more to come on the art of Norcino-style butchery. 

Reece.