beef Round
Bottom Round
The outside face of the hind leg — the biceps femoris. It sits against the eye of round, and the two are sold together as the gooseneck. It works harder than the top round and is laced with collagen rather than marbling, which decides everything about how it has to be cooked.
In one line
Cheap, lean and stubborn — it braises, but unlike chuck it brings no fat of its own.
Buy it if
You are braising, or feeding a crowd on a budget and have the afternoon.
It braises, but it is not chuck. Both cuts are held together by collagen that turns to gelatin given hours in liquid. Chuck also carries heavy internal fat, so it comes out of the pot rich as well as tender. Bottom round has the collagen and almost none of the fat, so it goes tender and stays lean. Braise it in something with body — stock, wine, tomato — rather than water, because the liquid has to supply what the meat cannot.
The tough middle is chemistry, not bad luck. At 135°F the collagen has not begun converting and the muscle has already squeezed out water. There is a real dead zone between a rare roast and a proper braise, and a roast pulled anywhere inside it will be worse than either end.
Trim the silverskin. The outside face of the leg is sheathed in a tough sheet of connective tissue that never renders, however long you cook it. Left on, it shrinks harder than the meat and curls the roast out of shape. Get a knife under it and take it off before anything else.
Where it comes from on the animal
| Species | beef |
|---|---|
| Primal | Round |
| Subprimal | bottom (outside) round — biceps femoris |
What else it’s called
How to cook Bottom Round
| Best methods | Braise Stew Sous vide Roast Smoke |
|---|---|
| Skip | Grill |
| Cook to | Braising: past 200°F and held there, usually about three hours. Roasting: stop at a rare 125–130°F and rest 15 minutes. |
Two roads, and nothing in between them. Either hours in liquid until a fork twists free, or a low roast stopped while it is still rare and carved as thin as your knife will go. Smoking works because it is the first road wearing a different hat. Grilling is the one method with no version of this cut that survives it.
Common questions
Is bottom round the same as rump roast?
Effectively, yes. Rump roast is cut from the upper end of the bottom round where the leg meets the sirloin — same muscle, same connective tissue, same rules. British butchers call the whole thing silverside, and call the top round topside, which is a clearer pair of names than ours.
What is the gooseneck round?
The bottom round with the eye of round still attached to it, sold as one piece. The name comes from the shape the two make together. Butchers usually separate them because they behave differently once they are on heat — the eye is leaner and more uniform, the bottom round has more connective tissue.
What is the difference between bottom round and eye of round?
The eye is the small cylindrical muscle, the semitendinosus, that lies against the bottom round proper. It is leaner and far more uniform in cross-section. The bottom round is the larger, flatter biceps femoris, with more connective tissue running through it and more flavour to show for it.
Why is it so cheap?
A steer has two ribeyes and a great deal of leg. The round is the largest primal on the animal and among the least tender parts of it, so supply is high and demand is low. You are not buying lesser beef — you are buying beef that will not work without a method.
