How to Fill Out a Beef Cut Sheet in 2026, Primal by Primal

The sheet asks the same questions for every primal: which cuts, how thick, how many per package, bone-in or boneless, and what goes to ground. The plant cannot give you both a rib roast and rib steaks from the same ribs, or a chuck roast and a flat iron from the same shoulder clod. Extension yield guides describe a standard carcass as roughly a quarter waste (bone, fat, and shrink), a quarter ground and stew, a quarter steaks, and a quarter roasts; Oklahoma State gives exactly that split. Your sheet moves the last three quarters around.

Penn State's figures are the ones we use throughout: chuck 29 percent, round 22, loin 16, rib 9, plate 9, flank 5, brisket 4, shank 3, and "the four beef primal cuts account for more than 75% of the entire carcass weight." Chuck and round are more than half the carcass, and how you handle them decides whether the freezer is full of roasts or full of ground.

Most sheets open with four general questions that apply to the whole half. Answer these first because they set the defaults for everything below.

On thickness: an inch to an inch and a half is the range in which a steak can take a hard sear and still be rare in the center. Three-quarter-inch steaks are the thin supermarket cut that overcooks on a grill. The trade is packages: a strip loin cut at 1.5 inches yields about two-thirds as many steaks as at 1 inch, each heavier. Choose thickness for how you cook, then let the package count follow.

The chuck is the shoulder, from the neck to the fifth rib, and at 29 percent of the carcass it is the largest primal. On a half beef it is about 110 lb of hanging weight. It is well marbled and full of connective tissue, which is why it makes the best pot roasts and the best ground beef and only a few steaks.

The usual answer is a mix: three or four chuck roasts, two flat irons, one package of short ribs, some stew, and the rest to ground. If you want more ground beef than the default, this is the primal to take it from, and if you want fewer roasts than the default, say so here or the plant will fill the freezer with them.

The rib (ribs six through twelve) and the loin (short loin and sirloin) are a quarter of the carcass and nearly all of its steak value. On a half beef the rib is about 35 lb hanging and the loin about 60.

The T-bone question is the one people regret. If you ask for boneless strips and filets, you get both, but the plant cannot also give you T-bones, and the filets are small. If you ask for T-bones, the tenderloin is inside them and there is no separate filet. Neither is wrong. Decide whether you cook the tenderloin whole; if you do, ask for it out, and take strip steaks and a rack of back ribs in exchange for the T-bones.

The round is the hind leg, 22 percent of the carcass and about 85 lb hanging on a half. It is lean and less tender than the chuck, so its roasts want low heat and slicing thin, and its steaks want marinating or tenderizing. Many households find round the primal they use least, and it is the second-best source of extra ground.

A typical sheet takes a rump roast, two sirloin tip roasts, a package or two of cube steaks, and sends the rest to ground. If you have never cooked an eye of round, do not ask for one; send it to ground and eat better burgers.

The four small primals are 21 percent of the carcass, and on many default sheets most of it goes to ground. Each has a named cut worth asking for by name.

Everything in this section is either on your sheet or in the plant's rendering barrel; the plant will not guess that you want oxtail. If you are one of two half-buyers, the whole-animal singles (hanger, oxtail, tongue) go to whoever asked first, or are split by the plant's house rule; ask.

The sheet changes the weight in the freezer more than most buyers expect. Penn State's carcass-yield publication gives the range from one Yield Grade 3 carcass of 756 lb: 544 lb (72 percent) if fabricated bone-in, 378 lb (50 percent) if fabricated boneless. The same publication shows that carcass fatness moves the boneless figure from 415 lb (Yield Grade 1) to 340 lb (Yield Grade 5), a 75 lb or 18 percent spread. Mississippi State's farm-direct beef guide uses a 1,200 lb steer at 63 percent dressing for a 756 lb carcass and about 470 lb of freezer beef, which is a mixed bone-in and boneless sheet at 62 percent.

Because farms price on hanging weight and plants charge cut-and-wrap on hanging weight, the cut sheet does not change what you pay; it changes what you get for it. A boneless sheet does not make the beef more expensive, but it does make every pound you carry out cost more, because there are fewer of them. Our hanging weight guide works the arithmetic and how much a half cow costs converts it to dollars.

The sheet below is a reasonable set of choices for a household of four that grills in summer, braises in winter, and cooks ground beef twice a week. It is built on Mississippi State's primal shares of freezer weight for a half beef (round 24 percent, chuck 25, rib 9, sirloin 9, short loin 8, plate 7, brisket 6, flank 4, shank 4, suet and hanging tender 4) applied to about 235 lb of take-home. Package counts are approximate; the plant's cutter and the animal's size will move them.

Read the totals against how you eat. Eighty pounds of ground is about 80 meals of burgers, tacos, and sauce over a year, which is right for a family that cooks it twice a week. Thirty packages of steak at two per package is a steak dinner every other week. Eight roasts is a Sunday roast every six weeks. If those rhythms do not match your kitchen, move weight between ground, steaks, and roasts on the chuck and round lines; that is where the flexibility is.

The plant will help if you call. Cutters fill out hundreds of these sheets a season and know which options their shop does well. Tell them how many people you feed and how you cook, and let them translate. Then read the sheet back before you sign. The half cow guide covers everything up to this form, and the freezer guide covers what happens after it.