Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire "Best" Beef Breed

This thread is moving along fast. This one of the few topics I feel like I know a thing, or two about. I'll be back as soon I roil up my pant legs, and find tall rubber boots.

The best tasting and chewing home raised beef I ever butchered was a full blood Jersey steer. The worst was a Charolais/Angus cross, it was tough and tasteless. A feedlot man in the mid-west told me that Holstein graded 90% choice, but didn't convert feed economically. Right now we are eating on an Angus/Brahman cross that broke a hind leg in the corral. Our adult kids and their spouses and kids all like it. I say it is ok for grass fed, it was fat enough. Low cholesterol beef is not to my taste.

I ate this today

Maybe, between the best beef breeds.

But there is not enough grain in the world to finish a holstein, or longhorn, let alone a jersey, to equal a grass finished Angus or hereford in tenderness or flavor.

There are a lot of beef breeds out there other than the traditional Old English breeds. Some with brahma blood. Some the "double muscled" breeds developed to satisfy the "lean beef" market. None of them butcher out with tenderness or flavor of angus/hereford/shorthorn.

Sorry George, but that is just gross. That is what I trim from my steak or roast before cooking.

IMO you're exactly right. My family started out back in ye olden tymes with Shorthorns and then Herefords started being introduced into the herd. I remember my Uncle HATED Angus...they were exotics. Then they crept in and now that's all my family raises, pretty much.

Brangus

DVD- They snuck some beef in your steak!

I agree with grain/corn fed being more tender, but damn if it isn’t pretty bland.

Gelbvieh

Even better when they are brushed and pampered daily by a 4H girl.

good stuff

BEEF = NEBRASKA

We make sure they have access to plenty hay(or grass) and corn both along with clean water, right up to the time we put a bullet between their eyes. Dad has always said that they tend to tste better if the rumen is healthy and working right.

I've gotten to the point I can't stand feed lot beef anymore. Something about it (fat composition?) that just coats your taste buds in two bites, and nothing but something acid will bring them back.

On Wednesday, I'll be picking up my freezer bull. Not steer, bull. Grew up on lean meat, and still prefer it. Grass fed, finished on alfalfa hay with a little bit of corn. Hung for three weeks. As close to moose as I've found. Half of it going to employees for their (late) Christmas bonus.

I've had grass fed beef that was not fit for consumption, tough and off-flavor, even a hint of rancidity (unsaturated fats?).

This is not a bad choice from a growth perspective.

http://www.thecattlesite.com/breeds/beef/69/santa-gertrudis/

How good the beef tastes and chews has a lot to do with when its butchered, how its fed prior to butchering, how quickly and well its processed, and how good the cook is......

When I was a kid, me and my brother worked the pens, scale and alleys at the local cow sale every week. The McDonalds buyer only bought the cheap stuff. Cripples, prolapses and cancer eyed cows. Things have changed since then, but I still have a hard time imagining all those cancer-eyed cows turned into quarter-pounders.....

You do a good job of keyboarding with those hooves!

I had a chance to hunt late season whitetails in Nebraska this past December. There were 5 of us in camp.I took enough elk steaks for everyone and the others brought Nebraska corn fed beef. Everyone agreed that my elk steaks were tastier and more tender than those New York Strip beef steaks.
I think some of the responses here are from people that raise a certain breed of cow and would not say a bad word about them no matter how they they tasted.Of course if they didn't think that way, they would be raising something else.

I don't buy much beef as mostly I eat elk ,deer,or pronghorn, but I raised some in my younger days. The last beef I bought probably 10 years ago was an angus. It was fed for 120 days on ground corn and wheat. It was just what the farmer had ready to butcher right then as he had angus, cross bred herefords, herefords and few rones there.He ate the same beef and wasn't too concerned about the breed. A lot of farmers around him that raised beef,bought his beef instead of eating their own that went to the sale barn.

I don't like straight grass feed beef .In my younger days we finished off some dairy steers, and they ate fine. They are not as financially rewarding as beef bred cows, but they be made to sure taste good, You just have lot more waste.

Corn is no good anyway.


The best flavor comes from barley.

I think a lot of the difference in grass/feed preference is where your cattle are grazing. I see a lot of those here from out west like the grass fed better. Our grass, here in Arkansas is mostly bermuda for pasture and hay. Back when I was talking about our good beef we were feeding Sirica Lespedesa. Back then some type of Lespedesa was the common hay. We can't grow Alfalfa here without hauling in a lot of lime. I am talking too much to make economic sense. Some places can grow it, but not in large enough areas to where it is cheap enough for cows. I know a lot of Western Ranchers got burned buying hay here, a few years ago when the drought was real bad. I could tell by seeing was was being baled in the fields. miles

You're joking, right??

They don't compare to good beef. We raised quite a variety but I really liked the Simmentals we butchered. Second choice is hereford.