I swore off mechanical tenderizing for 12 years, then a 74 year old rancher in Abilene changed my mind

Luna Kelly · 2026-09-29T20:00:04.585293+00:00

For years I turned down any customer who wanted cubed steak because my grandfather told me a blade tenderizer just pushes bacteria into the meat and ruins the fiber. I finally tried it on a batch of round steak last month because a rancher kept asking and I was tired of saying no. I ran 30 pounds through a hand crank unit and it took me 4 hours because I was going so slow, checking every piece, and second guessing myself the entire time. What I found was that if you keep the plates clean, chill the meat to 34 degrees, and run it once, the texture is fine and the cook time drops by half. The real problem was never the machine, it was people running warm meat through dirty equipment and giving the trade a bad name. I still prefer a jaccard for small orders but I was flat wrong about the big picture. Any of you run a tenderizer in your shop, and how do you handle the cleaning between beef and pork?

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I swore off mechanical tenderizing for 12 years, then a 74 year old rancher in Abilene changed my mind | Butchers - HW Forums