By Herbert Timpson. Reading time: about 10 minutes.

A beef cut sheet is the form that tells the processor how to cut a share: steak thickness, roasts or steaks from each primal, ground beef package size, and whether to keep soup bones and organs. The buyer fills it out after the deposit and before harvest. The choices move take-home pounds by 10 percent or more. The fix for stalled orders is a guided online form with the ranch’s defaults already filled in, a deadline two weeks before harvest, and a confirmation email.

At a glance

• What it records: “steak thickness, roast size, package portion size, bone-in or boneless options” (University of Missouri Extension, MX3001).
• Bone-in vs boneless: a 1,200 lb steer gives 516 lb of meat cut bone-in with regular trim, 456 lb cut boneless and closely trimmed (Iowa State Extension, PM 2076).
• One per side: “Each carcass half has one brisket and flank steak as well as two skirt steaks” (K-State Research and Extension, MF3395).
• House position: a quarter is half of a side with front and hind cuts mixed; an eighth is the quarter sheet halved, and the one-per-side cuts rotate.

This guide is part of the AMA meat e-commerce library. It covers the form itself. The deposit, balance and product page are in how to sell beef shares online.

What is a beef cut sheet, and who fills it out?

A cut sheet is one page that lists each primal and asks what to make from it. Missouri Extension: “The cut sheet provides instructions for how each primal cut should be processed. It records preferences such as steak thickness, roast size, package portion size, bone-in or boneless options, and whether specific primal cuts should be made into steaks, roasts, or other products” (MX3001).

• Whole or half: the buyer.
• Quarter: two buyers share one side, so the ranch sets the sheet and leaves two or three choices open.
• Eighth: the ranch. An eighth is too small to cut to order.
• Boxes and cuts by the package: no cut sheet; one master sheet per animal.

For the processor side, read the meat processor’s guide to selling direct.

What are the sections of a cut sheet, and what does each choice do to take-home pounds?

Extension cut sheets from Nevada, North Carolina and Kansas cover the same ground in the same order: front quarter, hind quarter, ground beef, bones and organs, special instructions. What each section asks, and what the answer does to the scale:

Steak thickness and steaks per package

Montana State puts the usual range at “3/4″ -1 1/2″” (MSU Extension, Richland County); the Nevada sheet defaults to 1 1/4 inch. Thickness barely changes total pounds; it changes the count.

Roasts or steaks from each primal

This is the section that moves weight.

• Bone-in or boneless. Iowa State: “If more boneless cuts are made, the carcass cutting yield will be lower.” And the line every product page should carry: “It is important to note that the amount of edible meat will not change” (PM 2076). Bone-in adds bone to the scale, not beef to the plate.
• T-bones or strip and filet. K-State: “Two options for cuts from the short loin are T-bones and porterhouse steaks or boneless New York strip steaks and tenderloin steaks (filets).” You cannot have both: “removing the tenderloin for fillets reduces the number of T-bone steaks that can be produced” (MX3001). The New York strip and the Kansas City strip are the same cut, the strip loin; the Kansas guide itself says New York strip. Write “New York strip (Kansas City strip, same cut)” on the sheet.
• Round as roasts, steaks or ground. K-State lists tip, rump, top, bottom and eye of round roasts, and notes many customers have round steaks tenderized or “produced into ground beef.”

Ground beef package size and leanness

Package size changes nothing on the scale (though patties often carry a surcharge). Leanness does. Iowa State: “a typical beef carcass could have 20 more pounds of ground beef if it is made into 70% lean ground beef than if it is made into 93% lean ground beef.”

Soup bones, short ribs and shanks

Keeping them raises take-home weight. Iowa State: “If you get soup bones and short ribs, the carcass cutting yield will be higher than if you have these items boned and put into ground beef.”

Organs and specialty cuts

K-State: “Organs (heart, liver, kidneys, oxtail, and tongue) are optional.” They sit outside the yield figures: extra pounds for the buyer who wants them, nothing lost for the buyer who does not.

What is a sensible default cut sheet a ranch can offer?

A house example, built from NC State’s basic-cuts sample and the defaults on the Nevada and Kansas sheets. Change any line to match your processor.

Section	House default
Steaks	1 inch thick, 2 per package
Short loin	New York strip (Kansas City strip, same cut) and tenderloin filets, 1 1/2 inch
Rib	Boneless ribeye steaks
Sirloin	Boneless top sirloin steaks; tri-tip as a roast
Chuck	Boneless chuck and arm roasts, 3 lb; rest to ground
Round	Sirloin tip and rump roasts, 3 lb; rest to ground
Brisket	Cut in half (point and flat)
Flank and skirt	Kept as steaks
Short ribs, shanks, soup bones	Kept, bone-in, 2 to 3 lb packages
Stew meat	1 lb packages
Ground beef	1 lb packages, 80 percent lean, no patties
Organs	Opt-in only (liver, heart, tongue, oxtail)
Packaging	Vacuum sealed
Aging	7 to 10 days (Iowa State: local butchers “will age a beef carcass 7 to 10 days, unless asked to do otherwise”)

Table sources: NC State CEFS sample cut sheets, UNR beef cut sheet, K-State MF3395.

The default leans boneless, the low side of the yield range. Set the listed take-home weight from it, and a buyer who switches to bone-in comes home heavier, never lighter. The hanging weight calculator takes the cutting yield as an input.

How do you collect the cut sheet online?

Three pieces, in this order.

1. A guided form with the defaults filled in. A web form, not a PDF. Every question has the house default selected, so a first-time buyer can change nothing and submit in two minutes. Beside each choice that changes weight, one line: “Bone-in adds bone to the package weight, not beef.”

2. A deadline two weeks before harvest, and the consequence. The form goes out in the reservation confirmation email the day the deposit lands: “If we do not have your cut sheet by October 20, we will cut your share to our standard sheet.” One reminder a week before the date.

3. A confirmation email. On submit, the buyer gets a copy of every choice and the ranch gets a row in a spreadsheet. On the deadline, the ranch fills the standard sheet for anyone missing and sends the batch to the processor with the owner list. The rest of the sequence: email sequences that sell the next beef share.

Never make the cut sheet a checkout step. Deposit first, cut sheet second.

How do quarters and eighths work on a cut sheet?

A carcass is split into two sides, and each side into a front quarter and a hind quarter. Montana State’s primal percentages show why those are not the quarters to sell: chuck 26 percent of the carcass, round 27, short loin 8, rib 10 (MSU Extension). A front-only quarter is roasts and ground; a hind-only quarter is steaks.

The house position: a quarter is a split half. Cut the side to one sheet, then divide every cut evenly between the two quarter buyers. One-per-side cuts get halved where they can be (brisket into point and flat) and rotate where they cannot. K-State’s count is the rule to print on the product page: one brisket, one flank, two skirts per side. Each quarter gets a brisket half and a skirt; the flank alternates between the two quarters harvest to harvest.

An eighth is the quarter sheet halved. Iowa State puts an eighth of a typical beef at “roughly 50-60 pounds” (PM 2076). Counts that halve cleanly go in every eighth (steaks, roasts, ground, stew). The single-unit cuts (brisket half, flank or skirt, rump, sirloin tip) rotate across the four eighths from that side. Never promise a brisket in every eighth; the locker cannot keep it. Say which cuts rotate.

Worked example: one steer, two cut sheets

Formula: Live weight × Dressing percentage × Cutting yield = Take-home pounds. Iowa State prints the same formula; the three weights are explained in hanging weight vs take-home weight.

Assumptions – Live weight: 1,300 lb. – Dressing percentage: 62 percent, inside the 60 to 64 percent range Nebraska Extension gives for fed cattle (UNL BeefWatch). Hanging weight: 1,300 × 0.62 = 806 lb. – Cutting yields: Iowa State’s two examples, 71 percent for “bone-in steaks and roasts, regular trimmed, regular ground beef” and 62 percent for “boneless steaks and roasts, closely trimmed, lean ground beef” (PM 2076).

Cut sheet A, bone-in: T-bones, bone-in rib steaks and chuck roasts, regular trim, 80 percent lean ground, bones and short ribs kept. 806 × 0.71 = 572 lb take-home (rounded). Half: 286 lb. Quarter: 143 lb.

Cut sheet B, boneless (the house default, cut lean): strips and filets, boneless ribeye and chuck, close trim, 90 percent lean ground, bones into the grind. 806 × 0.62 = 500 lb take-home (rounded). Half: 250 lb. Quarter: 125 lb.

	Sheet A, bone-in	Sheet B, boneless	Difference
Whole	572 lb	500 lb	72 lb
Half	286 lb	250 lb	36 lb
Quarter	143 lb	125 lb	18 lb

Same steer, same hanging weight, 72 lb apart on the scale. The edible beef is the same; the difference is bone and fat that went into a package on sheet A and into the trim barrel on sheet B. Nebraska (585 lb bone-in vs 500 lb boneless from an 880 lb carcass) and Penn State (544 vs 378 from 756 lb) show the same or a wider spread; SDSU puts the full range at 55 to 75 percent of carcass weight.

For the product page: list the take-home weight from the boneless sheet, bill that weight, and let bone-in be a pleasant surprise. A quarter listed at “125 pounds or more” and delivered at 140 is a repeat customer. Freezer space follows the same logic: will a half beef fit in my freezer.

How AMA handles this

Agriculture Marketing Agency is an agriculture-only marketing agency. On a share program, we treat the cut sheet as part of the sale: we write the plain-English version of the ranch’s standard sheet, build the guided form with the defaults selected, put the one-per-side rule on the quarter and eighth product pages, and set up the confirmation, deadline and reminder emails. Joseph Timpson handles the SEO and technical work. Herbert Timpson handles client coordination and implementation, including agreeing the standard sheet and deadline with the ranch and its processor.

The work runs on the store the ranch already has, whether that is Shopify, where the Diamond R program runs, or a farm platform. Our platform comparison covers where each one fits.

Proof: what happened when the shares were explained

Diamond R Cattle, a fourth-generation Black Angus ranch in Independence, Kansas, sells quarters, halves and wholes to families within driving distance. Before the work, the share pages sat on page two of Google in every delivery city. After product titles were rewritten to say what the customer gets and six city and state pages were built, beef shares went from 0 to 11, comparing March 20 to April 18 against August 17 to September 15, 2026 (Shopify). Selected-period comparison: slowest 30 days before vs. best 30 days after. It does not isolate the effect of marketing. The full story is in the Diamond R Cattle case study.

What doesn’t work

Sending the processor’s blank PDF. Forty cuts by locker name, no defaults, no explanation. The buyer opens it, closes it, and you are chasing them at harvest.

No deadline. A cut sheet with no date arrives the morning of harvest, or never. The date and the consequence belong in the first email.

Letting each quarter buyer pick every cut. If one wants T-bones and the other wants strips and filets, the processor cannot cut the same short loin both ways. Open two or three choices and cut the rest to the standard.

Promising one-per-side cuts in every share. A page that shows a brisket in every eighth is a promise the locker cannot keep.

Frequently asked questions

What is a beef cut sheet? It is the form that tells the processor how to cut and package a beef share. It records steak thickness, roasts or steaks from each primal, bone-in or boneless, ground beef package size and leanness, and whether to keep soup bones and organs.

Who fills out the cut sheet for a quarter beef? The ranch, with two or three choices left to the buyer. Two quarter buyers share one side, so the side is cut to one sheet and divided evenly. Cuts that come one per side are halved where possible and rotate otherwise.

Does bone-in or boneless change how much beef you get? Yes, on the scale, but not on the plate. Iowa State’s examples give a 1,200 lb steer 516 lb of meat cut bone-in with regular trim and 456 lb cut boneless and closely trimmed, and note that the amount of edible meat does not change.

Is a Kansas City strip the same as a New York strip? Yes. Both names refer to the strip loin steak from the short loin. Write “New York strip (Kansas City strip, same cut)” on the cut sheet so buyers do not think they are choosing between two steaks.

When should the cut sheet be due? Two weeks before harvest. Send the form in the reservation confirmation email the day the deposit lands, send one reminder a week before the deadline, and state that anyone who misses it is cut to the standard sheet.

How much beef is in an eighth? About 50 to 60 pounds from a typical beef, according to Iowa State Extension. An eighth is cut to the quarter sheet halved, with single-unit cuts like brisket and flank rotating across the four eighths from that side.

Get your cut sheet workflow checked

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About the author. Herbert Timpson is a co-founder of Agriculture Marketing Agency, where he handles client coordination and implementation. He grew up raising sheep in Centennial Park, Arizona, worked sheep, cattle and crops in Mt. Pleasant, Utah, and keeps animals on his homestead.

Sources – Kansas State University Research and Extension, MF3395, “Beef Processing Options for Consumers” (O’Quinn et al., February 2018): https://bookstore.ksre.ksu.edu/pubs/beef-processing-options-for-consumers_MF3395.pdf – Iowa State University Extension, PM 2076, “Beef and Pork Whole Animal Buying Guide” (Thiboumery and Jepsen, reprinted April 2013): https://www.extension.iastate.edu/wayne/files/documents/PM2076.pdf – University of Missouri Extension, MX3001, “Buying Meat Direct From the Farm”: https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/mx3001 – University of Nevada, Reno, Wolf Pack Meats, “Beef Cut Sheet” (2023): https://naes.agnt.unr.edu/PMS/Pubs/2023-5149.pdf – NC State University Center for Environmental Farming Systems, “Sample Cut Sheets: Beef” (March 2023): https://cefs.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/CFBM-Beef-Cut-Sheet-Samples_3.28.23-3.pdf – Montana State University Extension, Richland County, “4-H Animal Whole Animal Buying Guide”: https://www.montana.edu/extension/richland/documents/4Hbuyingguide.pdf – Nebraska Extension BeefWatch, “How Many Pounds of Meat Can We Expect From A Beef Animal?”: https://beef.unl.edu/beefwatch/2020/how-many-pounds-meat-can-we-expect-beef-animal – Penn State Extension, “Understanding Beef Carcass Yields and Losses During Processing”: https://extension.psu.edu/understanding-beef-carcass-yields-and-losses-during-processing – SDSU Extension, “How Much Meat Can You Expect from a Fed Steer?”: https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-fed-steer

Last updated: September 26, 2026