Longhorn beef?

FEF · #21 01/15/11, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Up North

Round up a group of Longhorns in Texas or New Mexico. Drive them overland for hundreds of miles eating only native grasses along the way. Then when you get them up to Kansas load them into railcars packed tight like sardines so they don't go down on the trip. Rattle their teeth out on the train ride to Chicago, put them under a lot of stress unloading them and moving them to the kill floor and then butcher them out.

Compare that to trucking black beef calves to a feedlot in western Kansas, feeding them out on grain where they do very little walking. Then walk them across the road and through a slaughter facility designed by Temple Grandin where they are calm and walking along one minute and dead the next.

Which process would develop a reputation for tough and stringy meat?

Now a carrot will never be an apple, and a Longhorn will never be an Angus.
But how they are raised, handled, and harvested plays some role in the end product.

Uh, I don't think many Longhorns or anything else is driven hundreds of miles to the railhead anymore. But nice try.

IMO, that's one of the benefits of a diverse beef industry: variety. But today the uninformed are often put off by a piece of tough, lean beef when they really wanted a tender marbled cut. When someone tells me they've been enjoying prime, high quality beef, I have to caution them when they start considering buying a lean cut. One in four Select (low marbled) steaks will likely be tough. One in six commodity Choice steaks will likely be tough. Mid-Choice or better (CAB) is about one in eight and when you get to Prime, a tough steak is practically unheard of. Yes, aging and tenderizing makes a difference if that's what you're looking for.

Horseyrider · #22 01/16/11, 10:11 AM

I really appreciate your discussion on this topic for me. It's great to be able to learn from those who are more experienced.

The drift I get (unless I really misunderstand here) is that longhorn has a reputation for being tough, due to the historical tradition of moving it to market; but that doesn't necessarily reflect reality. And I agree; a carrot will never be an apple. But I also agree that how it's handled and aged will have huge impact, and that while perhaps different from my prime beef, it still may have a place in my kitchen.

I've been to my farrier's place. Here in our part of the state, most of the pastures are rich black loam, and his appears to be no exception. He's meticulous with his stewardship of both land and critters. When the day comes to ship, a handful of steers will be gently pushed into a plain ol' stock trailer and hauled no more than 25 miles to a small independent processor. My farrier expressed a preference for this processor because of how he wraps the meat. This processor wraps first with plastic and then with brown paper, where the other uses plastic only. He felt it led to too much freezer burn. (Have to say here that my prime beef butcher wraps first in plastic sheet, then in brown paper, and again with brown paper. Every single individual portion is wrapped in three layers, and there's almost never any freezer burn.)

When I was a kid, my folks got their meat (again, prime) from a guy who used to run the butchershop where my grandparents shopped. This old guy really knew what he was doing. I remember wandering back into the back with my mom, and looking between sides of beef at cuts he was carefully aging for my parents. He said (with some sadness and disdain) that most people want bright red meat in the case; and the darkening from good aging made people think the meat was rotten. Correct aging certainly makes a huge difference in tenderness, but I have no doubt it will also increase the processing costs. I don't mind paying that, but I'm not sure what's reasonable to ask for.

Your thoughts on aging for optimal deliciousness?

lonelyfarmgirl · #23 01/16/11, 11:33 AM

we usually hung for 2 weeks, but then our butcher suggested something else. he ages for one week hanging, then cuts and vacuum seals the cuts, then lets them sit refrigerated for another week of aging. the steaks taste fine.