I LOVE prime beef

[Eos]

I've tried the Alton Brown method of dry aging on porterhouses and ribeyes. It's OK but a steak can take on a bit of a funky flavor that I personally don't care for.

imo, the best thing you can do for a steak is to let it sit at room temp for two-three hours, salt it and let it sit for another 30 - 45 minutes, then grill it. It's like a condensed dry-aging process.

I did this last week and promptly overcooked the fucking things on a grill using lump charcoal. They were slightly over medium, but still delicious, natch.

Over the next week, we would thinly slice the leftover steaks, then heat with butter in an 8" cast iron skillet over medium low. Oh dear...

 

[qliveur]

I buy my grass-fed black angus beef directly from a farmer friend of mine. I don't know whether or not it's prime, but, daaaamn, is it good.

 

[BUTCH1]

GoSharks is correct. Very few grocery stores even list the grade anymore. In general, beef is bred leaner today and few restaurants today use 'Prime.' Butch1, if your local store are actually labeling and selling choice/prime, count yourself lucky as you are in the minority.

Both Publix and Winn-Dixie advertise as choice, Food lion does not (if you press the meatcutter he'll tell you it's select). There is a misunderstanding that select came from inferior cattle but the truth is grading is done by a USDA inspector at the kill plant and some beef just have more marbling than others..

 

[BUTCH1]

Whole Foods and my neighbor... he's a butcher. He buys whole sides of beef and cuts them himself. He's also a hunter, so i've been lucky to try all sorts of interesting animal.

Also, i've tried dry-aged a few times, and I honestly can't see what the big deal is. It's good, but nothing that really brings it to another level. Wagyu beef, on he other hand, is fucking amazing! Is wagyu beef ever dry-aged? Sounds like something i need to investigate...

Your neighbor must have some good connections, swinging beef (whole sides) are difficult to find not to mention your gonna need a band saw to properly process it, usually it's broken down into primal cuts and shipped in boxes nowadays. What I really miss from my meatcutting days was I used to process 30-50 short loins /day, out of those I would cut myself 2 20oz porterhouse's out of the best short loins I would come across.

 

[PaperclipGod]

Your neighbor must have some good connections, swinging beef (whole sides) are difficult to find not to mention your gonna need a band saw to properly process it, usually it's broken down into primal cuts and shipped in boxes nowadays.

AFAIK he doesn't use a bandsaw, but i've never asked. He owns a local market thats been around for years. It's gonna suck when he retires.

 

[bignateyk]

I always go to the store in the middle of the week. This is when they reduce the price of all the meats that are nearing their expiration date. I buy up all the organic/grass fed prime cuts of beef they have marked down and put them in the freezer. They are usually marked down to equal or less than regular choice cuts.

 

[evident]

i dont normally agree with many of your posts... but you are dead on with prime strip steaks being da bomb and love of costco :awe:

I only eat tenderloin. Everything else just tastes so inferior that I just can't justify spending money on it.

Also, isn't most beef in grocery stores these days prime, except for the really gristly cuts?

tenderloin is ok, it really doesn't have as much flavor as many other cuts of meat out there. at least with flap, shortribs and flank you can make something creative and save $$$