Choice or prime that is the question

[Daniel lara]

So I know many of you have done one or the other but what I want to know is has any body aged both choice and prime? Is there a big difference in the final product. Does the marbling difference with prime translate to better flavor the main reason I wanted to know cause I’m going to buy prime loins this week end

[Ron Pratt]

I have to be blunt in my answer…I really wish I could buy a sub-primal that is rated and labeled as certified USDA PRIME beef! Back here in Illinois where they raise and fatten both grass fed and corn fed cattle any primals off carcasses rated as prime are grabbed up by the suppliers to the best steakhouses. Those prime units never make it to our suppliers except for the occasional few that slip by!

[Daniel lara]

Do you have a costco cause they have pime angus it has great marbling

[Daniel lara]

Out here in cali it runs $9.80 lb. and I don’t know anything about shipping meat

[Daniel lara]

If I could I would try to help out…… Prime seems like it will make a great dry aged streak

[Daniel lara]

This is how the look

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[Anonymous]

I am headed by Costco today for some other items and will checkout there selection. I thought that the Prime they had was only for individual steaks and not primals.

[Daniel lara]

Just so you know if they have prime cuts them they have the loins even if you have to ask some one to get you one

[Anonymous]

The San Jose Costco had Choice Boneless Rib Eye Primals at $4.97 and Choice New York Primals at $4.67 today. I did not see Prime individual steaks anywhere in the meat case today although I have seen them in the past.

[Anonymous]

I have aged both prime and choice Black Angus ribeyes. I have both aging right now. A prime ribeye that went into the dry bag on 9/16/10 and another prime on 2/2/11. I also have two choice rib eye that went into the dry bag on 10/29/10 and 1/10/11. All the meat was wet aged from three to eight weeks before they were put into the dry bag.

The longer the aging the greater the water loss.

Taste seems to be dependent on the cow and then the grade.

The longer the beef is aged the better it is.

Sear and cook over very high heat till rare or medium rare. The longer the meat is aged the faster it cooks.

I prefer prime over choice on short term aging (under 60 days). Long term aging brings the two closer together. I prefer 90 plus aging except for prime filet tenderlion where 30 plus gives a very nice untrimmed steak.

Richard

[Anonymous]

One thing that you should be aware of is that the UDSA grading program is actually slightly more granular than just Select/Choice/Prime. Inside Choice particularily, you can have better quality or worse quality. For example, I believe the stuff I can get a the local supermarket is Choice-, but the stuff at the meat market I go to is Choice+. The difference is in the marbling degree grade…choice can either be small, modest, or moderate. The stuff at the meat market is slightly more expensive, but is consistently better, as you would expect with the higher marbling grade. In the USDA system, anything with a marbling degree of slightly abundant or higher is Prime, which is fine for Angus as it will almost never get past this point. If you get into Wagyu, you can actually get marbling well past “slightly abundant” and have to go to a different grading system to distinguish, called the BMS system. This is a japanese system and the scale goes 1-12 (higher is more marbling). Angus would almost never grade higher than 5, which happens to correlate well with the UDSA rating of Prime.

As for the question of if Prime is worth it, I’d say yes. What we’re going to do is keep the vast majority of our aged Wagyu (BMS 10+, way way past Prime) for special occasions and age some Choice+ stuff from the local butcher shop for having friends/family over.

BTW, I’ll update my Wagyu thread soon with some details and pictures of the cutting of the first strip loin 🙂

[Anonymous]

Prime is not just about marbling. There is also an element of age (Prime is also typically from younger steers.) The less mature beef is more tender (which makes me wonder why one has to pound the hell out of veal to make it edible ??)

[Anonymous]

The Veal I have had in the US is not the same as Veal in countries like Italy. In Italy, all of the veal we had was incredibly tender and it was white not red. I have had Veal porterhouses and Veal steaks that were very tender. The flavor was much milder. I think in the US we really get Calf that has been grain or grass fed for awhile to get the weight up. According to Wikipedia:
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There are five types of veal:

* Bob veal, from calves that are slaughtered when only a few days old (70-150 lb.) up to 150 lb.[2]

* Formula-fed (or “milk-fed”) veal, from calves that are raised on a milk formula supplement. The meat colour is ivory or creamy pink, with a firm, fine, and velvety appearance. They are usually slaughtered when they reach 18–20 weeks of age (450-500 lb).[3]

* Non-formula-fed (“red” or “grain-fed”)[4] veal, from calves that are raised on grain, hay, or other solid food, in addition to milk. The meat is darker in colour, and some additional marbling and fat may be apparent. Usually marketed as calf, rather than veal, at 22–26 weeks of age (650-700 lb).

* Rose veal UK is from calves reared on farms in association with the UK RSPCA’s Freedom Food programme. Its name comes from its pink colour, which is a result of the calves being slaughtered at around 35 weeks.[5]

* Free-raised veal, The veal calves are raised in the pasture, have unlimited access to mother’s milk and pasture grasses. They are not administered hormones or antibiotics. These conditions replicate those used to raise authentic pasture-raised veal. The meat is a rich pink color. Free-raised veal are typically lower in fat than other veal.[citation needed] Calves are slaughtered at about 24 weeks of age.

[Anonymous]

I am just finishing up a Costco prime NY Strip. Typically I go for Restaurant Depot Certified Angus. Angus purveyors usually decline to undergo USDA testing as their beef is always equal to Choice or Prime. To my palate, good Angus tastes better than Costo’s Prime (whose prices have gone up considerably in the past 6 months. In general, Prime will have more marbling, but to tell you the truth, I have dry aged some SELECT that ended up better-tasting than a lot of steakhouse cuts.

Remember, the schmucks who grade beef are Govt. grunts looking at a small core of meat sample from a rib. The rest of the carcass might look like Wagyu, but they never see it. Use your common sense in the meat case. I am not a Tea Partier, or anything, but I don’t let the U.S.D.A pick out my meat for me.

[Author]

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