Choosing the right kind of meat for your steak makes a huge difference in how it ends up tasting like when it is cooked. This means that if you want to eat a steak that feels absolutely exquisite on your taste buds, you will have to dive in a little deeper into the world of meat.
Keep in mind that steak selection is a detailed process. To simplify it, we have carefully prepared a guide to assist you in your journey in choosing the ideal steak.
Picking Out the Beef
Now the first step is choosing the right type of beef. For example, if you want high-class meat, you can opt for Wagyu beef. It originates from cattle raised in Japan, and among its competitors, Wagyu is considered to have the best beef marbling technique used for its beef.
Other reasons behind its popular taste are its long term fattening period and selective breeding process. This allows the beef to melt at a low heat temperature. Moreover, Wagyu beef has a balanced fat distribution, giving the cooked meat a delectable butter-like flavor.
The next is Angus beef. This is the most common type of meat available. You can easily find it in restaurants or even your local grocery store. It does not define the quality of the meat until it is processed later on. This means that you can improve the Angus beef quality with proper marbling done by professional butchers.
Compared to the Wagyu beef-with a price tag of around $200 a pound- Angus beef is more easily accessible to consumers at a lower price range of about $4-$5 a pound.
If you aren’t sure, you will find many steak companies that can help you hand select your choice of meat. A prime example is the Chicago Steak Company offering both types of cut beef with contactless and free delivery throughout the United States.
USDA Beef Scale
The USDA is responsible for inspecting the beef. However, many beef companies pay the USDA to grade their beef quality. This way, they can label their beef as ‘USDA Prime Beef’ to make it more credible.
Hence, the next step that comes after choosing the beef, is selecting which one you want from the USDA beef scale- ‘Select’, ‘Prime’ or ‘Choice’.
Select has the least marbling, making it less succulent than a high-grade steak. However, it is still tenderized enough to have a decent taste. The next comes ‘Choice’ beef. Almost 50% of this beef is distributed throughout the United States. The marbling of this beef is a cut above Choice, making it more juicer and softer.
Lastly, there is ‘Prime’ beef- the best high-grade meat available and superior to all its competitors. It has a good amount of marbling and lots of fat, which makes it extremely flavorful and tender to the core. Due to its high-class status, only 3% of ‘Prime’ beef is approved by the USDA in America.
If you are looking for the best Prime beef on the market, Chicago Steak company offers the top 2% of USDA Prime and Choice beef. In fact, in 2015, the Great Steak Debate led to Chicago Steak company winning the ‘Best Steak’ in the People’s Choice Award.
Dry or Wet Aging
Dry aging is a process where the beef is hung in the air and left to dry for a few weeks. The enzymes in the beef also decompose the beef naturally during this process. The end result of dry aging is that the beef ends up being extremely tender with a powerful juicy flavor.
The only downside is that the lack of moisture reduces the weight of the beef. Plus, it is more expensive to purchase than wet aging beef due to the substantial labor required to supervise the entire process.
Wet aging is a newly introduced process where vacuumed sealed beef is delivered to the market in plastic containers with an aging process of 4-10 days. This beef’s benefits are that it doesn’t lose weight and is sold within an affordable range for the consumers. However, the quality is not on par with dry-aged beef.
One of the best places you get dry aged meat is from Chicago Steak Company. They offer the best custom dry aging beef in its industry and is listed by the dry aging beef market as a growing figure in the dry-aging beef industry.
You can rest assured that, by following the above tips, you will not have to compromise on your steak’s taste no matter what type of cut you are planning to get.