Lean/Fat ratio butchering process

[deanlorensen]

For those that do beef butchering how do you get your lean to fat ratio? Or how is done in a packing house? Last fall I was apart of butchering a steer and the guys doing the trimming were pretty much cutting all the fat off. When we ground it they didnt add any fat back in; but someone made the comment that it was 95/5.

[Tex_77]

One way you could do it is to way out your lean, then figure out how much fat you need to add to get to the ratio you want. Generally ground chuck will be around 80/20 or higher, ground round will be a bit leaner around an 85/15.

[deanlorensen]

Tex_77 I figured a guy could do that but didnt know if there was an easier/quicker way.

[processhead]

The way you guys are trimming and sorting fat/ lean while butchering sounds pretty normal. Once it is sorted like that, when you get ready to grind you have a lot of flexibility to weigh out any proportion of lean/ fat that you want.
Some lean trimmings will have intramuscular fat that makes it less than 100% lean. That could be where your butchering buddies are getting the 95/5 ratio you mentioned.