"Hi, I have a question for you. We recently butchered two older cows. They were grass fed cattle raised by someone we know who raises his animals naturally. The animals were shot and gutted day one. (It was about 32F) We then drove for 2 hours with both animals in the back of our pickup. (It was now around 25F outside). We kept both carcasses in a garage that was about 45 F. One was removed and skinned the following day (in 32 to 20 F weather) the other was skinned the next. Both animals were stored in the garage for 3 night. We butchered both animals 3 days after death. The rear parts of the animals were fine but when we got to the front (especially the neck near the head) we noticed the meat to be noticeably green with an off smell (I can send pictures of the green meat). We ended up discarding a lot of the meat. Of note, the meat we handled the day we butchered was very cool to the touch. Both beefs had been outside in sub-32-20F weather for a few hours at least. Have you ever experienced, or know someone who has experienced, something like this? I have previously only butchered wild game like deer and moose. I have let the meat hang for 8-10 days in temps between 45-32F. We were careful with this beef but maybe 45F is too warm for two days storage of a larger animal like a cow (which were each 1000lbs on the hoof). If you have any comments I would appreciate it. Again, if you would like pictures of the meat I can I can send them to you. Take care, Dwayne"
I wonder if it's "sour bone"? But that's usually strongets in the hind quarter between the round and sirloin. Sometimes in the shoulder. But I think if it's found anywhere, then the entire carcass is no good.
Let me lay out the killing process in a thumb-nail sketch so you can determine the difference between what you did and what packers do.
1) There is no refrigeration on a kill floor except for companies that can afford air condition to make it comfortable for its employees. Cattle are stunned, then stuck, from then on everything is on a time-line. Cattle will travel along the bleed-rail over the blood trough. The animal must be drained of it blood quickly so timing is of the essence. As the animal moves along the chain certain cuts will be made like removal of udders, or hoofs ect. After sticking and bleeding the next "most important step is hide removal". The hide must be removed in so many minutes after sticking. Removing the hide will begin the body heat dissipation. After the head removal then the next important process is gutting. Then the carcass is split with huge splitting saws. Again, the carcasses now in two halves are moving
Before and after gutting the carcass will move by high and low trim stations to remove any bruises, or fecal contamination due to hide pull. Inspection must take place by the Inspector in charge (IIC), a qualified veterinarian, then also checked by plant Q.A. The carcass keeps moving along the line into a carcass wash cabinet and then after the wash cabinet they go into another spray cabinet where a spray of a mixture of citric acid or some other form of natural bacteria growing retardant is applied.
Then the halves moves into the "chill spray" room for bone chilling temperatures to take the 95 degree carcasses down to its processing internal temp of 38 degrees or less. This is the most important step not only to chill the meat but to retard bacterial growth and stabilize carcass shrinkage. The hot-box as its called is not a chill cooler, it is a "blast cooler" using tons and tons of refrigeration to get the carcass as cold as possible in the least amount of time. The halves will stay in there until the proper internal temps are where they should be. Sometimes as along as 24 hours depending on how packed the coolers are.
Depending on the size of the packer cattle will be killed at a low of 5 head per hour to as much as 320 head per hour. But all this will happen as fast as it can for an individual carcass. Again depending the line speed and size of the packer possibly carcasses should get though this process in minutes. Like possibly 15 to 20 minutes into the chill coolers.
As far as the green meat is concerned, its no telling what happened. Obviously green is not a good color for beef. But one thing is for sure the worst temperature for processing beef is "fluctuating temperatures". I have seen green meat in and around abscesses. If an abscess is spotted on a carcasses in the slaughtering process the line is stopped and the abscess is cut out, and then inspected to make sure all of it is out. Sometimes the abscess runs deep and a complete primal may be lost to it.
If the green meat had a rotten egg odor to it there is not doubt that it was caused by a certain bacteria.
There is a natural form of greening in beef this occurs in normal acidity meat where the PH level is less than PH-6. And this type greening will be slight and have a sycadelic look to it. It may be alarming to customes but it is acutally a harmless form of bacteria. This kind of evaluation is too technical for me to fully understand and I am just passing it along. Personally I have seen this type greening in my meat cutting days but not that very much.
-- Edited by Coalcracker on Wednesday 7th of December 2016 09:36:43 AM
From the photographs it looks to me like an internal abscess. Abscesses are collections of pus in confined tissue spaces, usually caused by bacterial infection. If this animal was taken to a state or federal slaughter house it would have been evaluated by the IIC and no doubt the major portion within the affected area would have to be cut away. Not all abscesses lead to condemnation.
Looking at the photographs it looks like the abscess could have started in the neck area of the animal and spread into the forequarter. Many abscesses are attribute to sharp-pointed material in the feed or forage that cause small puncture wounds which become colonized by pathogenic bacteria, which leads to abscess formation. Generally they are found in the head or neck area however, an abscess can form anywhere on the animal either young or old.
As far as yellow fat is concerned, the major cause of yellow fat is the intake of the yellow carotenoid pigments, especially b-carotene. Grass/forages are the major source of carotenoid pigments. Dairy cattle would be prone to yellow fat more than beef cattle where by their finishing diets contain mostly grain and very little forage.
-- Edited by Coalcracker on Wednesday 7th of December 2016 08:30:01 PM
