Custom Processing
Understanding Live Weight, Hanging Weight, and Take-Home Weight
One of the most common sources of confusion when having an animal processed is the difference between its original weight and the amount of packaged meat you ultimately receive. A whole animal’s weight does not translate pound-for-pound into finished steaks, roasts, ground meat, and other cuts.
Understanding the three basic measurements, live weight, hanging weight, and take-home weight, gives you a much more realistic idea of what happens during custom processing.
- TL;DR
- Live weight is the animal's weight before processing.
- Hanging weight is measured after the initial processing removes non-meat portions.
- Take-home weight is the finished amount after aging, trimming, deboning, cutting, and packaging.
- Your cutting instructions can significantly affect your final yield.
What Affects Your Final Meat Yield?
Understanding meat weights is an important part of custom processing. Turk Brothers Custom Meats explains the differences between live, hanging, and take-home weights, along with the factors that affect your final meat yield, so you know what to expect from your order.
What Does Live Weight Mean?
Because many parts of the animal are removed during processing, live weight should never be interpreted as the amount of meat you’ll put in your freezer.
What Does Hanging Weight Mean?
As a general example, a beef hanging weight may be around 62% of its live weight, although individual animals vary. Hanging weight is still not the same as finished take-home weight.
What Is Take-Home Weight?
The finished order might include steaks, roasts, ground beef, stew meat, ribs, and other selections depending on your cutting instructions.
Why Does Take-Home Weight Vary?
Bone-in versus boneless selections can also make a noticeable difference. Removing bones reduces the weight of the finished packages even though you’re still receiving the usable meat from those cuts.
How Do Your Cutting Instructions Affect Your Final Yield?
This is why take-home yield is better understood as a range rather than a guaranteed percentage of the animal’s original weight.
Steaks, Roasts, Ground Meat, Pork & Specialty products
Why Is Understanding These Weights Important?
Knowing the difference helps you plan your purchase, processing expectations, and freezer space more accurately. It also prevents the common misconception that an animal’s hanging weight should equal the weight of the packages you take home. Custom processing involves several necessary steps between the live animal and the finished freezer-ready product. Each step affects the final weight.
Have A Question? We Are Here To Help!
Frequently Asked Questions
Have questions about meat yields? Turk Brothers Custom Meats explains the differences between hanging weight and take-home weight, including how trimming, animal characteristics, and cutting choices affect the amount of meat you receive.
No. Hanging weight is measured before additional aging, trimming, deboning, cutting, and packaging. Your take-home weight will be lower.
Animals differ in build, fat, bone, and the amount of trimming required. Different cutting instructions can also produce different final take-home weights.
Yes. Choosing boneless cuts means the bones are removed before packaging, so the final packaged weight will be lower than if those same cuts were left bone-in.
