[OC] I bought and cooked 5.5 lb of chicken quarters. This is the breakdown of the weight throughout the processCJs_goldfish t1_iw8rnqf wrote
Crazy coincidence: Yesterday I bought about 5 1/2 pounds of chicken breasts because they were on sale and we cooked them in an instant pot and shredded them for quick additions to salads, wraps, etc. My partner portioned out the finished product using a kitchen scale and was absolutely galled that it lost about half the weight in water.
Beansilluminate t1_iw92mqf wrote
That’s going to be the case for any meat you cook tho.
Nobody sells meat as “cooked weight”. It’s all relative
Guacanagariz t1_iw946w5 wrote
Costco with their $5.00 rotisserie chicken has entered the chat
gingerofthenorth t1_iw9c580 wrote
They sell the leftover chicken meat in vacuum packs for like $7+lb. Less of a good deal but the fresh ones are a loss leader to get you in and buying other products.
calciphus t1_iwai17o wrote
I heard from a friend who works for a grocery store it's not actually a loss leader, it's loss prevention. When chicken is at the end of its sellable life you cook it and can sell it for several more days. Basically before that they were throwing away unsold chicken. It's less wasteful, people eat it, and the cost of production is negligible relative to paying to dispose of it.
Can't vouch for accuracy, but that's what I'd heard
alwaysuseswrongyour t1_iwaj9cm wrote
Costco sells way too many rotisserie chickens and way to little whole chicken for this to be true. It also costs a lot to be using those massive ovens all day to cook them. There is simply zero way they are making money on that chicken.
calciphus t1_iwakazv wrote
You make a very good point. I am suspicious of my friend's claims now.
Hoodstompa t1_iwbn4dh wrote
Yeah that’s not the case for Costco whatsoever. We do harvest the chicken meat from cooked birds that don’t sell, but the chicken we get for rotisserie is ENTIRELY separate from what we offer to the member as raw product. We sell upwards of 300 a day, and I work at a fairly slow store. The vacuum sealed cooked packs come from our suppliers, and is never cooked or processed in house as well. That may be the case for other groceries, but not Costco.
calciphus t1_iwcb8tr wrote
This is super informative, thanks for sharing!
Beansilluminate t1_iw94eei wrote
Damn Costco. Always ruining it for the rest of us
thiney49 t1_iw9w4l5 wrote
Yeah but that's not sold by the pound. It's just sold by magic.
CJs_goldfish t1_iwbmnhx wrote
“Cooked weight” made me chuckle, can you imagine? It makes sense, i’d just never really thought about liquid release as a ratio before.
dreaming-in-colour OP t1_iw95km6 wrote
I used an oven, so I had evaporation. Did you have a big puddle of water and fat in the pot? I'm curious about doing this with breast or other boneless cuts.
Naive-Kangaroo3031 t1_iw99dfv wrote
Please do. This was very informative, and I'm curious on how the bones would affect the edible yield
CJs_goldfish t1_iwbmg0n wrote
Yes, it’s hard to say how much because we cooked it with broth, but there was quite a bit.
Fausterion18 t1_iwaj5wn wrote
This is literally basic biology, water is three quarters of muscle mass. You're buying raw meat, not beef jerky.
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