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I just cooked a rather large, grass-fed porterhouse steak on my outdoor grill.
It came out perfect, but to be honest, the flavor was WAY different from regular beef.
It took some getting used to...meat was less fatty, but very juicy (bloodier).
It had a strange, somewhat gamey smell, and the fat (what little there was of it) had an unusual flavor.
No worry about eating the fat with this animal.
I could only eat half, and for a split-second I felt like i was eating a beast.
V*gans would have had a coronary to watch.
How primal..and unexpected.
Does anyone out there eat grass-fed meats, cheese, or butter on a regular basis?
My son buys his beef from this butcher store that sells grass feed beef from New Zealand. It is just so amazingly good I can't believe it. Very tender and suprisingly marbled with fat.
You know, not all beef animals are created equal. I used to buy a beef from a friend of mine very 6 months or so. It was always a herford and I have never tasted anything as good since. The way the animal is killed also plays a part I'm sure. This gur had a small plant and the animals were just calm and happy right up to the end. They walked in through the door chewing their cud all relaxed and BOOM. The number of days the meat is hung also makes a big difference. I have noticed in the uSA they don't age the beef long enough for my tastes. The beef I bought from my fried was aged for 25 days in a closely monitored environment. The temp and the humidity have to be just right. You can take a great side of beef and ruin it very easily by not aging it correctly.
Thanks.. I also forgot to mention that i thawed it out perhaps longer than advisable .. like for a couple of days in my fridge. i am going to cook the next one after thawing in a cold-water bath the same day i plan to cook it. i feel terrible that i may not have done the beef justice. I also hope i have not poisoned myself.
Serves me right.
grass fed & grass finished beef does have a much different flavor than feedlot cornfed beef, and it's most noticeable in the beef fat itself -- the fat is usually yellower in color and has a much gamier smell & flavor. I've had both and a third option, which is grass fed & grain-grazed finished, where in the last couple of months before butchering, grain is placed in the pasture and the cattle can feed on that as they please. Since it is sweeter than grass, the cows will eat that in addition to the grass, and it tends to keep the meat and fat from being quite as gamy as a fully grass-finished cow. Some places refer to it as Roseda beef. I personally like the Roseda beef when I can get it -- a very beefy flavor but not a gamey one.
Dry aging and wet aging also make a big difference in flavor and texture. Supermarket beef is wet aged -- cut into primals and sealed in heavy plastic under vacuum. Dry aged beef is hung in a cold room where air can circulate all around it and moisture evaporates away over many days. The outer edges get too dried out & crusty for sale, and the evaporation of moisture reduces the amount of pounds to be sold in each side of beef, plus it takes longer to process. For all these reasons, dry-aged beef is more expensive and harder to find. If you're selling beef for an average of $6/lb (considering filets to ground beef) and you've lost 30 percent of the weight of a side of beef to evaporation and tied up your storage for 2-3 weeks, it's a lot harder to keep your profits high enough to cover your costs and still be able to meet your customers' demands.
Weezycom: Thanks for your very detailed explanation of the grass-beef types. My meat was purchased at a farmers market in Florida vacuum packed and frozen. I just ate some of the leftover meat from the fridge and was surprised that the flavor was milder than when just cooked. I think it might take a little getting used to but that's ok as i have three more in the freezer!
Grass fed is the only way to go for me. I find the flavour much deeper and satisfying. I also find it more tender and succulent. At least 28 day aged.
Corn fed to me is unatural. Cows eat grass naturally. Not corn.
The best beef I ever had was Argentinian and Canadian ( from Alberta) both of them grass fed and naturally, properly hung and aged. The difference with corn fed is phenomenal. There is no comparison really. Also corn fed cattle seems more often than not to be adulterated with growth hormones and raised usually in far worse conditions.
Grass fed is the only way to go for me. I find the flavour much deeper and satisfying. I also find it more tender and succulent. At least 28 day aged.
Corn fed to me is unatural. Cows eat grass naturally. Not corn.
The best beef I ever had was Argentinian and Canadian ( from Alberta) both of them grass fed and naturally, properly hung and aged. The difference with corn fed is phenomenal. There is no comparison really. Also corn fed cattle seems more often than not to be adulterated with growth hormones and raised usually in far worse conditions.
^In my experience, grass fed beef tends to be less tender. I think your tenderness is coming from the aging which is expensive! (but delicious).
I do buy grass fed beef when sometimes I buy steaks, but a lot of the grass fed beef in Whole Foods has awful marbling and sometimes I cannot make myself buy it when it is lying next to it's cornfed counterpart who is streaked with sweet, creamy fat.
I've had grass fed, no thank you. Corn fed is more tender, more fat content(more juicy), and a better flavor to me.
Everyone gets on corn's case. It is a grass, like sorghum. Wheat is a grass.
Cattle are usually put on corn fields that had a large amount(or even small) of grain lost due to weather or harvest. They clean it up real well. Deer will eat the corn, even coons. Corn is natural and natural for them to eat. But they do need roughage and like corn silage.
Go see what they will eat first. Drop some corn on the ground in the grass. See what happens.
The farmer I occasionally buy from raises grass-fed Australian Lowline cattle - they're smaller than typical US cattle. I don't much notice a difference in color of fat, but both fat and muscle have more beef flavor than supermarket - in other words, a rib cut may pack the beefy flavor of a skirt steak, and the skirt steak is off the charts. Even the ground beef makes a much tastier burger.
Hard to buy all the time due to expense, but we try to get some a couple times a month.
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Corn fed is more tender, more fat content(more juicy), and a better flavor to me. 
