Marbling and rib eye size?

[cowman]

Now once again, I am no rocket scientist, so this is just personal observation. When you take a top sirloin steak and look at it you can hardly see any internal fat? If you trim off the outer fat...it has to be about as close to fat free as possible? And yet, if cooked properly, it can be very tasty and tender and in fact juicy if cut thick? Again only a personal preference as I just can't abide a greasy steak!
And again from observation: Probably the tenderest beef I ever butchered was a yearling Char heifer, grain fed about 90 days, slaughtered around 1000 lb.! There was almost zero marbling and yet she was very tender and very tasty! And about the worst darned animal I ever ate was a yearling Sim steer, grain fed about half a year? Tough as a boot and not much flavor! Don't know if that was genetics or what? He didn't marble very well but had a good outer fat cover. Maybe there is a reason why Western Feedlots doesn't want any Simmental cattle?

[smcgrath76]

There are a lot of papers out of Lacombe, however nothing super recent and consumer tastes have been changing, but Joe Average will take a piece of generic AA over generic AAA beef out of the meat counter roughly 85% of the time. I am sure branding products has changed this over time.
The kicker is that most preferred AAA in blind taste tests.

[rkaiser]

How abouit this for a kicker Sean. Last CBEF meeting with CEO's from Cargill, Tyson, and such in attendence picked the AAA first and D1 cow second in a blind taste test that included all grades of fed cattle.

[smcgrath76]

And they say this industry has no direction!!!
Does that mean that D1 cows are going to come up in price yet again?

[rkaiser]

I think not Sean. Have been working up to a Western Producer editorial discussing the serving of more cow beef in Canada than ever in History. No that it is bad, as discovered by the CBEF board, but still not as good as that which we are sending our American cousins while watching the packers enjoy yet another Canadian Salmon run. Don't really want to blast the Beef Information Center once again, but they sure have helped this cow meat thing with new recipes etc. Guess some producer other than me is gainig from this producer levy money --- or is it maybe the packers and the retailers?????

[smcgrath76]

I think rkaiser that is another topic worthy of a post.