made my first beefheart

[discus4me]

I was not happy with the quality of beefheart that i was getting from my lfs so i decided to make my own beefheart recipe for my discus. I got myelft one big moo heart and started slicing away. when cubed i mixed it with some shrimp and flake food blended it up and waalah the nastiest concoxtion i have ever made. I mean it smelled horrible :o. The only satisfaction i got out of it was that my discus love the stuff and i have enough to last for 6 months. To sum it up one word discribes this process......YUCK. :puke:

[bottle-blonde]

when you freeze it how do you section it up for easy access? i mean, if you stick it in one big ziplock bag do you have to chissel it away with a knife whenever you feed your fish?

[ronrca]

I buy the biggest ziplock freezer bags and flatten the liquid beefheart to a thickness of around 1/4"-1/2". I then put it in the freezer and after its frozen, I break it up into hundreds of chunkies and store in a container. No messing around with chisels and knives. ;D

[bottle-blonde]

that's great! thanks ronrca, i think i'll try that today. if i can find a butcher downtown... lol

[cesar_1304]

Funny... I just bought my first beef heart today... that thing is frozen solid so I dont think I will be slicing and dicing any time soon...

Any tips on cleaning? How long should I anticipate being in the kitchen?

-Cesar

[discus4me]

cesar,
It actually didnt take that long to slice it into all beef cubes. I took a little extra time going back over the cubes to make sure all of the fat and grisle was out (leaving only pure meat). Then it was a breeze toss all the stuff together and blend it up. You could use a food processor but i dont have one so i just used the blender and hit the pulse button. I used a large ziploc freezer bag and smashed all the beefheart flat 1/2 inch thick, i also used a container that had cubed sections from my old formula 1 discus food and that worked great. I guess it took about an hour to make but took me another hour to clorox the kitchen counters because i used shrimp and my wife is allergic to shellfish. I guess she wont be feeding the discus huh? ;D

[cesar_1304]

Jeez... you werent messing around when you mentioned the smell!!! Although it was fun mixing my own discus food and knowing exactly what my discus will eat this is definatley not a venture for someone who has a weak stomach or sensitive nose... The beef heart smell gets everywhere!

I would recommend making beefheart mix to all discus keepers... Now lets see if I can get these suckers to grow!

-Cesar

[limige]

how do most of you go about thawing your hearts out? also, how do you buy your shrimp, what do you have to do to prep it?

i can't eat fish or shrimp myself so i'm not real familiar with cleaning it,

[Discusgeo]

limige the best way to thaw out your heart it to put it in the refridgerator and wait a couple of days. Next time go to your local meat market and ask for a fresh unfrozen one. My local market called Albertsons orders mine when I need some, but I would order 6 at a time. They then would remove the fat and devien it for me, and run it thru the meat grinder used for hamburger. All the time they thought it was for dog or cat food. I would then bring it home and finnish adding the rest of the products to it and freeze it.
George

[paul_burney]

Thats what i do also George except mine is a local Tomboy grocer who does all the work ;D ;D
Paul