Tough beef

I sent my first beeves to slaughter 2 wk's ago. They were 3 bulls, that were 16 months old. Really fine looking angus calves. that were totally grass fed, except for a quart of ground corn daily, the last two months. I ate my first rib steak tonight, and was very disapointed. The wife cooked our steaks the same way we cook our ribeyes that we get at safeway, but they were very tough, and didn't taste as good. What really worries me is that 5 other people, have bought halves from me, and are just now getting their meat from the butcher. Are they going to be as disapointed as me? $2:00 a lb to me and $.50 a lb, to the meat cutter. I was very happy to move the extra meat, till now. Is it because they were grass fed? or is it because they were bulls? I realize that based on one tough steak, that I may be over worring this thing.

I would try more of the meat before I made any judgments. I would make sure in the future to not allow bulls to get that old without castrating them. They may grow a little faster but they can make much tougher meat.

For myself I don't think the grass feed beef is as good as grain finished beef. The grass feed beef has a following that makes it like a religion to them. I can tell the difference in the meat before it is cooked, the color is different. Then you can get tougher steaks too. Maybe some people like chewing on their work boots but I like mine nice and tender. I usually get that with grain feed beef. The grass feed beef is kind of a crap shoot on whether it it tough or not.

Usually there is an inverse relationship between flavor and tenderness. Meaning if it has taste it'll be tough, if it's tender it'll be tasteless. At 16 months you should of been able to produce tender meat. Looking at the steaks can tell you how much finish was on the cow, the juiciness is a function of how much fat is in the meat. In years past some meat markets would age their beef, hang the full or 1/2 carcass in the cooler for a while with the belief that the aging caused the beef to become more tender. There are some markets for lean grass feed beef, it's healthier for you and more sustainable if you're raising cows on land that is marginal for crops. Being grass feed and how much exercise they had and even how they are handled transporting them to slaughter will all affect beef quality. IMHO feeding them a quart of corn every day was a waste. Neighbor of ours would pull his slaughter cattle out of the pasture, put them in a stanchion and feed them grain for 30-45 days before slaughter, by the way he was a Michigan meat inspector. Next batch get them castrated, save the corn until the last 30 days, pen them up and feed them grain.

A quart of corn per day for 60 days is not much. Takes corn to get the marbling (fat- where the flavor is) and texture. Grass fed might be a good mantra for the PC types with the pastoral view of the world. Basically what you have is bologna bulls- only way to eat them is ground up, very fine. The first knife to contact that meat should have been a scalpel.

sounds like you didn't age it long enough. My grass-only fed 2 yr old bull was aged 3 weeks at 35 to 37 degrees. Maybe marinate yours next time, see if it helps. Mine was purebred Scottish Highland.

I think I will buy next yr's beef at Safeway! I sold 3 steers, 4 months old, at a feeder sale, and ended up with$1950.00, after comission, ins, and vet ck. I think that would be the best way to handle next yr.s calves, even tho the market won't hold that long!

Beef needs to be 2 - 3 years old for flavor. You sent them to slaughter too soon.

You dont butcher bulls they need to be fixed second grass fed it takes corn and they should weigh 1100 lbs finished its always been that way unless you dont care about choice meat.

you probably got somebody else's meat. they sold your angus to some sucker.

There is no guarantee that you got your beef back. This is why we do our own

I usually take them out of the pasture and into the barn an hammer the chop to them for a good 3 or4 months. Always made them nice and tender, that's just me tho

Usually cattle can eat 2/1/2 percent of their body weight when on full feed.Grass fed beef doesnt have the tenderness,fat cover or flavor of corn fed beef.With corn at over $.10 cents cattle can eat 25# of grain plus roughage.Too save on cost many use the corn by-products.Cost of gain is over $.80 and if cattle are over $120 per hundred you should still make a profit.Young bulls usually stay leaner and it doesnt cost much to band them. Genetics and the lenght of time on feed play a big difference.Some of the best meat I have eaten came from a dairy animal that had been on full feed since it was young.I have judged many live and carcass shows and you can only give an educated guess what is underneath the skin.I buy many beef for people at our fair and I usually take the fast gainers that are yield grade 2&3 as the are fatter and eat much better than the overfats or underfats.
Hamburger can have fat added steaks have to stand alone.I personnaly would take a MacDonalds probably imported Australion[Certified Angus cow beef] burger over a tough steak anyday

Grass fed means they were out on pasture (not fed green chop)? If so they were getting too much exercise. Confinement is half the equation on growing tender beef. I bought back a half once that was tough and had it made into slim jims.

Read an article in Grassland Farmer about slaughtering,stressed animal's meat is tougher and very important to quickly cool the meat.Also the quality of your grass is very important.Then again you may have not gotten your meat back especially if the slaughterhouse sells meat.All reasons why I kill my own here on the farm.

I would not have let them get that old. The last one I had butchered was less that a year old. He was taken off the cow.

KEH

You just learned how "GREAT" grass fed is. Expensive lesson wasn't it?
I start my calves on grain in the creep feeder at about 3-4 months,wean them around 500-600 pounds and keep them right on grain,corn silage and hay til they're finished. It's rare to have any piece of meat that you can't cut with a fork.
Sorry to hear that you listened to the wrong folks.

Our beefs have been creep fed from about birth, weaned then slowly put on all the ground corn with 6% ration of hubbard steak maker pellets. We can ussually have them to 1100# by about 11 months, even had one that was 1230 at 10 months. Have never had a complaint, animals always buthced at local small locker. However, our most raved about beef has been the ones the last couple years that we put on full free choice 3rd cutting alfalfa for the last 45 days, with only a smaller amount of grain. Every onje that gets one of them beefs then request another over the grain finished. I personally noticed the difference, much better flavor and just as tender. Did a grass fed once, no one liked, even the hippies that insisted on "go green" grass fed. These are angus/shorhorn/pinzgaur/simmental crosses. yes I have all colors, blacks are no better than the yellows, red, spotted,browns. I like variety of color in the herd

This all reminds me of the time in the Staff NCO mess in the Corps when a buddy of mine cut into a piece of meat and said, "Man, I'll bet they chased this critter off across the desert before they caught him!"

The Mess Sergeant overheard him and gave him a dirty look.

I'm not fan of the "grass fed" beef. I believe it's a marketing gimmick. It's far cheaper to put cattle on pasture that try to keep them grain fed.

Especially here in TX. Dang things taste like the brush they've been eating and leather tough.

I grew up on Iowa grain fed beef and still think it has the best taste and tenderness.

Growing up we gave butcher steers a limited pasture, alfalfa, and cracked corn. About 6 weeks before we butcher we penned them up and fed as much corn as they would eat and not allow any physical activity. We butchered them young at about 900-1000 lbs. This was about the right amount to fill the freezer for the year.

My grandfather talked about penning them up and feeding corn till they just about went down. I never could get him to tell me how long that was.

Mom kept 3 of the biggest chest type deep freezers in the basement. We raised hogs,beef, chickens, a few ducks and geese. Had a big garden that Mom canned and froze from. Her grocery run was for staples, milk butter flour coffee etc.

We sure ate better back in the day than we do now.

I used to have a beef butchered but found that I had a lot of undesirable cuts that didn't fit into our eating habits.

So I take mine to the sale and stop by the grocery store and buy the cuts we use. In doing that I also don't have to worry about whether or not I got my meat. I have had that concern more than once for the same reasons as you but obviously it's just speculation.

Other thing I always wondered, especially when I saw a meat counter at the butchers, was did I get all of my choice cuts or did one or two wind up in the display case.

Again, not pointing fingers, just makes you wonder. Have no way of determining one way or the other and that is what made me wonder.

Mark

Ralph, I too am sorry for your results, Unless this is your usual feeding program you bought in to the biggest lie in the Beef industry.
If 1 qt of ground corn / day was all you gave those steers!!!!! Well you Got what you Got! Poor Results.
I don't have a problem with the calves grazing in a grass trap, BUT those last 60 to 90 days You should have been pushing @ Least about 3gal of shelled corn @ 2 times / day / Head!!! ++++ 1 flake of Alfalfa / feeding!
You may have some apologizing to do But next time it will be different.
You can not take the fat off of steer and expect the meat to have any taste!!
Later,
John A.

Just don't buy any Alberta beef that was processed at XL foods in Brooks.

Ralph,
Stress will make meat tough. I can't recall the type of hormone their body produces when stressed, but too much stress, especially during penning, transport(short is better), at the slaughterhouse right before being killed, can make meat tough. Pretty much true for cattle, hogs, deer (commercially raised, for example in southern New Zealand), etc. At the slaughterhouse, you want them to be in a breed appropriate sized pen and group, resting for a some hours, before taken to the processing line. I also heard that sprinklers dispersing water while in rest will calm them down, too.
Dunno the kind of facility you took them to but that's what I have heard. Also, is the meat aged properly?? Aging will make meat a bit more tender, too.
The "other" Ralph in OK.

My Beefer's get good gallon of grain in the
morning & they same at night. Ever since they
went out to pasture.

Good Grain = good taste..

Agreed.

The "all natural" grass fed beef people are ruining lots of perfectly good meals. Give it a a month or two and there will be huge amount of tough beef on the grocery shelves. Lots of guys are going to run out of hay and there won't be any for sale at any price.

Are you guys sure it is not because they were bulls? I butchered a couple boar pigs at about 300 lbs a couple years back. They were awful. Every cut was just rotton. Stunk when you unwrapped it and just got worse when you started cooking it. Ended up boiling it and giving it all to the dog. Even the smoked hams had that piggy smell. I don't know if beef would be the same.

beef bulls do not taint like pigs do.
In actuality you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between meat from a steer or a bull if fed the same.

With such a poor diet the meat will be a lot tougher than the stuff that you buy at the store. You will need to learn to cook it differently than store bought beef. This means low and slow....Lots of crockpot suppers....

This stealing at the butchers happens more than you think.The last cow I had done had the smallest liver Ive seen on a cow,The first one we had done had no sirloin steaks.

Your first sentence said it all. The meat needs to hang at least three weeks,if not more and you are eating within two weeks.You can't beat aged beef for tenderness and taste.

Grass beef is very different. Don't cook it too much or it will be tough as nails

When I grew up we had a finishing mix to flavor the meet. Molasses grains etc.

You never butcher boar pigs.When they stop breeding they are best shot and buried.Any farm boy knows that here.Pigs feed can affect the taste of their meat.

I used to raise Duroc hogs. I'd buy them wiened and raise them up to 200-220 and have them butchered and the hams and chops cured.

Used to use a feed named "Farley's Show Gilt" which was a finely ground pure corn product with nutrients sold by a grain barn by the name of Farley. Hams were superb. Cuts were nice and clean, good texture, meat had an iridescent shine to it where you cut it....superb flavor and that was the first time I had cured pork chops and they were fabulously delicious.

So one year I decided to feed Milo. No way Jose. Meat was horrible.

Mark

all i can say is ,welcome to the real world.LOL you should have planted your corn for all it did.couple of things that may help..first, forget the angus beef thing,its pure hoax. Believe it or not there was a study done about forty years ago now.Results were taught in all the ag colleges. The no. one overall prefered beef,across the whole study group in every category ,was believe it or not a JERSEY STEER!!! Time after time it won out over all the competition. BUT!!!! this was at a time when grass fed beef was on its way out,and corn fed beef was just really coming in. dont know if you know it or not,but the switch to corn fed beef was strictly because of not the consumer,but the way the consumer SHOPPED!thats right, look back at the history af supermarkets. folks were getting refrigerators and freezers,so they bought their meat not in daily quantities but for a week or two at a time. So market owners wanted beef that (A) LOOKED good on the shelf,(B) that kept well(C) that they could sell in vast quantities year round. thats what drove the american market..taste was not really a high priority consideration. It appears that the market youve built up wants grass fed beef,without all the additives. well guess what, late fifties-early sixties was a time of huge change in the market,not only in the way meat was sold,but how it was finished for market. Instead of cattle being sort of a spring or fall crop it had to be available year round. first some enterprising person found they could start the tenderizing process of meat believe it or not ,while it was still alive. This required a couple of things,first a highly marbled meat for the emzines to work on,and a way to hold these cattle confined. (so the so called beef cattle feed lot industry was born).before this time cattle were held in pens,but only long enough to move them from the pens through the slaughter house.It was ALSO found that by taking certain chemicals and injecting into the meat at slaughter time,the aging time of meat could be signifantly shortened,and the temps at which aging could take place could be much higher. for instance our affore mentioned jersey could go through a aging process that instead of thirty to forty days at 40-45 degrees,with chemical aging it could be aged in one day at 70 degrees. great for the market ,but not real great for the consumer.meat was dry,and tasteless.so to counter this,packers found they could chemically tenderize/age meat,THEN put moisture back in.(pink slime ring any bells?) since all this chemical manipulation relied on the marbling of meat,meat type cows became the norm.angus lends itself very well to this type of chemical manipulation SIMPLY because they tend to be a standard size and weight,evenly marbled,etc.so the myth of angus beef was born! in your case,since your using it without all the additives you dont get the tenderizing,flavoring,etc benifits chemicals provide so you meat is no tender than ANY other.IN YOUR CASE,angus is probably quite honestly a drawback! (and before the fight starts let me explain how).,so would be any of the so called beef breeds of cattle. marbling adds taste,but the taste comes NOT from the cow/bull etc.it comes from the feed the cow eats. for you a breed that has LESS marbling would give a better flavor,it could be aged LONGER because less marbling would mean less chance of meat turning rancid before it aged. You could finish a steer in say ten to fifteen days in a feedlot by putting steers on a full grain diet to get rid of any wild taste that may be in the small amount of fat.since you had less time between moving them off pasture and slaughter,meat would be more tender since its been proven time and again exercised beef is naturally more tender. age those steers for say 30 days before packaging at 45 degrees or so and youll have a better product.in other words, to make a long story short ,you cant cut corners . steak starts in the parents,follows through to a mother with plenty of milk for a strong healthy growth,right on to good pasture,into clean lots with the right grain,through slaughter ,aging,packaging and your table. cut a corner anywhere and its a worse outcome instead of better.

As one poster said,...who says you got your own beef back?
Butchers that run a meat counter to boot can't be trusted.
Stress with loading ,transport and the way they were treated prior to and how they were killed can a big factor in how the meat turns out.
There is nothing wrong with grass fed beef,but beef that hung for 28 days makes the best meat.
Being black angus is no garantie against being tough,it happens with all breeds.
Age has no bearing on toughness either.
I ate many an older cow that was tender.
Intact bulls are on average not the best eating, i prefer a heifer.

You guys are making me hungry!!

I'm not an advocate for grass fed beef... but I certainly won't sit here and say it can't be done. It is done... and done very widely thoughout the world except in north america...
From the information I've read over the years, the main component in getting a good carcass that will grade out well is consistent ADG from birth through to slaughter. Info I've read, albeit from the grass farmer type books... suggest that if ADG falls below 1 #/day you're going to run into problems with carcass quality. If you can keep them gaining 2.5-3#/day the quality on grass should be equal to feedlot beef with the exception that the fat will be more yellow...
The reason for angus and the other british breeds is that they can make that kind of gain on lush grass. The continental breeds, due to their higher body maintenance needs have a very hard time making gain on anything but the very best pasture... but they do respond very well to diets high in energy... meaning CORN.

The challenge as I see it with grass finishing of cattle is not in that it can't be done... it's a matter of keeping a forage in front of the beast that can provide enough energy. In a northern climate, THAT is a challenge. It's easy to keep forage here for 4-5 months that will probably do the job but after that it gets dicey...

Rod

I used to buy piglets from a fellow who fed potato waste to sows.When one stopped breeding he butchered her.He said whenever he cooked some of her meat it smelled like potatoes cooking.I had a Jersey cow that liked dandelions,it flavored her milk.Same problem with milk goats.

This Dutch double muscle cattle is what i call "real beef. :wink:
It'll put anything to shame that runs around on this continent in taste and tenderness
Never mind the 85% yield.

very true! that in a nutshell "IS" the problem with grass fed beef,and always has been.years ago most beef was slaughtered spring and fall,when grass was at its most nutritious. a lot of packing plants even ran on a part time basis.But the modern supermarket ,the home refrigeration units ,etc made a year long market possible. instead of housewives going to the butcher shop,where the butcher normally aged the meat, and buying what meat was in season,or holding a side of beef in a locker. so to keep a year round supply folks simply started keeping cattle in feed lots,chemicaly tenderizing/aging/etc. the timing of grass fed beef slaughter is a huge factor in the tenderness and flavor. thats why in most of the world beef is not the primary meat source.its a seasonal product,supplanted largely by goat thats been slow cooked in most recipes to make it tender.the US is the only nation where beef is a primary meat source,though its becoming more and more accepted around the world. as you say,they largely use grass fed beef,simply because the feed to keep one in a feed lot is simply too expensive. You cannot in most cases ,handle grass fed beef as you would a steer fed out and finished in a feedlot for 100 or more days.