This is my first experience with raising our own beef. We’ve got two cows that are due to be slaughtered in another 4 weeks. They’ve been grass/hay fed since we purchased them a year ago. They’re black angus.
When I was setting things up with the slaughter, the gentleman mentioned that grass fed beef tastes “different” then regular beef from the grocery store (I assume he meant corn fed). He said the meat wouldn’t be as sweet. He suggested feeding corn and molasses the last few weeks. Anyone have experiences to share with your own beef? I was hoping for delicious grass-fed only meat!
We buy grass fed beef from a friend. It’s never grain finished.
It’s a lot more lean. Cooking it is different than cooking grocery store beef. (A bit of a learning curve!!) But once you figure it out, it’s awesome. I far prefer our beef to grocery store stuff. I wouldn’t say it’s less “sweet” but I would say it tastes “cleaner.”
I figured it would be leaner. I prefer lean meat. Other than steaks on the grill, most every cut of beef I eat is prepared in the crock pot so it always comes out tender, regardless of the lack of marbling. I was a bit taken aback by his comments. He strongly urged feeding the corn or said I’d be dreading eating it.
How old are your cattle and what sex? Grass fed beef is just nasty, tough and flavorless. It has no where near the flavor as beef finished with grain. I suppose if that’s all you’ve eaten in a while, you’d think its ok but if you did a blind taste test between grass fed and grain fed beef, you’d pick the grain fed every time. I would finish them off the next four weeks with a good finishing grain. Check with your feed store, they should be able to recommend a beef finishing ration.
ETA If you think cooking it in the crock pot is going to make it tender and flavorful, think again. My dad bought a grass fed steer about a year before he died. The roasts were darn near inedible, even after cooking in the crockpot with seasonings. The steaks were passable, if you marinated them long enough. The hamburger was ok for tacos and spaghetti but for hamburgers, no flavor. The ribs were just tough and nasty, even if smoked for hours or cooked in the crockpot.
I’m not a beef person anyway. My husband is. My stepfather raises grass fed. We get stew beef and ground from him. It’s different. You will get used to it. Personally I wouldn’t look forward to eating a Delmonico steak from a grass fed, but that’s a pretty small portion of the cuts.
A friend of ours does a wonderful job finishing beef. His secret ingredient is vinegar. He says he feeds them as much apple cider vinegar on their feed as they will eat. Says it makes them tender. It’s awesome meat. Not sure how it would taste if he finished the same steer without vinegar and that’s an experiment we’ll never get to try :lol:
[QUOTE=wireweiners;7700815]
How old are your cattle and what sex? Grass fed beef is just nasty, tough and flavorless. It has no where near the flavor as beef finished with grain. I suppose if that’s all you’ve eaten in a while, you’d think its ok but if you did a blind taste test between grass fed and grain fed beef, you’d pick the grain fed every time. I would finish them off the next four weeks with a good finishing grain. Check with your feed store, they should be able to recommend a beef finishing ration.[/QUOTE]
Wow, I TOTALLY disagree. And I eat grain finished beef fairly often. I far prefer the grass fed.
[QUOTE=wireweiners;7700815]
How old are your cattle and what sex? Grass fed beef is just nasty, tough and flavorless. It has no where near the flavor as beef finished with grain. I suppose if that’s all you’ve eaten in a while, you’d think its ok but if you did a blind taste test between grass fed and grain fed beef, you’d pick the grain fed every time. I would finish them off the next four weeks with a good finishing grain. Check with your feed store, they should be able to recommend a beef finishing ration.
ETA If you think cooking it in the crock pot is going to make it tender and flavorful, think again. My dad bought a grass fed steer about a year before he died. The roasts were darn near inedible, even after cooking in the crockpot with seasonings. The steaks were passable, if you marinated them long enough. The hamburger was ok for tacos and spaghetti but for hamburgers, no flavor. The ribs were just tough and nasty, even if smoked for hours or cooked in the crockpot.[/QUOTE]
Crikey, so this may totally change our plans. If feeding them finisher will make that big of a difference, then I’m all about the finisher. But if it’s not a certainty, I may just take them to the sale and use the proceeds for hay this year. One thing for certain is I do NOT want a freezer full of unpalatable tough meat!
I have to admit I’m a bit disappointed. I was always under the impression grass fed beef was primo flavor, putting all grain fed beef to shame.
You have two! Finish one with grain, leave the other on grass/hay and report back!
[QUOTE=TBROCKS;7700842]
I was always under the impression grass fed beef was primo flavor, putting all grain fed beef to shame.[/QUOTE]
Beer fed would probably take the cake. Americans are used to the taste of corn fed. The grass fed is the primo moral high ground. And that’s why I eat it. It’s the ultimate environmentally friendly, healthy, low petroleum, cattle frolicking in meadows full of butterflies choice. And there’s a lot to be said for that. People who love Grass Fed will tell you it puts grain fed to shame. But it tastes different.
Another consideration is the actual processing plant.
I bought two halves from the same farmer (my barn owner) two years in a row. The beef packed at the first plant was tasty (but expensive). The beef packed at the less expensive plant had a ‘funny’ taste.
Both steers were angus cross, grass fed, grain finished… the only difference was the processor…
Well…Let’s say I go to Whole Foods, and buy a couple of $20 grass fed Angus hamburger patties. Are those going to be non-finished? Because if not, I might be able to gauge the flavor by doing that…
When I was a kid, we always had a milk cow, sometimes two, mostly Jerseys. The milk cow’s calf was usually the one we butchered for ourselves. They were allowed to nurse until 6 months and also given hay and grain and then were finished out on grain. The meat was very tender and flavorful.
Some of the best beef I ever ate was acquired literally by accident. We had a neighbor who also ran a slaughter house. His place was up by the main highway. A semi full of prime Angus steers overturned near his place. My dad happened by just after it happened. Dad and the neighbor corralled most of the steers in neighbor’s pens but several were injured and one was killed. Dad slit the dead steer’s throat so it would bleed out and processed it at home. Another steer was stunned but the State Police shot it as it was “suffering”. So dad and neighbor bled that steer out and processed it at the slaughter house. The 3rd steer had a broken leg but they got it loaded and hauled to the slaughter house and slaughtered and processed it there. These were steers that had been finished to the max for high end steak housed. Talk about good!
We bought grass fed from Whole Foods prior to buying from a friend. It should give you an idea, but it still doesn’t compare, IMO, to what I have in my freezer.
Where are you? I’m selling some meat to friends over the next couple weeks (we’re moving toward the end of August) and if you’re nearby, I’d be happy to hook you up 
We’re in East Central Alabama. Would love to buy a test-patty
[QUOTE=wireweiners;7700815]
Grass fed beef is just nasty, tough and flavorless. It has no where near the flavor as beef finished with grain. I suppose if that’s all you’ve eaten in a while, you’d think its ok but if you did a blind taste test between grass fed and grain fed beef, you’d pick the grain fed every time. [/QUOTE]
That hasn’t been my experience.
OP, we raise cattle and butcher one every now and then. We split the meat with friends and they finish the animals for us. So I can’t really speak to what they fed.
But the last one was a really nice, full-grown bull who suffered an irreparable leg injury. Ouch! to the pocketbook on that one. 
Since we were planning on BREEDING him not eating him, he was not fed any grain whatsoever. The meat is extremely lean (like 95%+ for the hamburger … and we got 600# of it :o) but it has great flavor.
We get a side of grass fed beef every year. I wouldn’t worry about the flavor at all, it is delicious. Even better if you cook it in grass fed butter. Our butcher also does dry aging. Dry aging makes the meat so tender and flavorful.
[QUOTE=TBROCKS;7700930]
We’re in East Central Alabama. Would love to buy a test-patty :)[/QUOTE]
Too far from me, TBROCKS, but hopefully someone else can hook you up!
I work on a dairy operation and do a fair bit of cooking for my bosses. All beef is young heifers that didn’t get pregnant. All are finished exactly the same way as the dry cows and pregnant heifers - corn silage, straw, supplements. They are all butchered at the same age. They are all female.
Every last one of the cows tastes different. Some are amazing (yes, I will always remember that Goddess tasted as heavenly as her name) and some are meh.
The butcher that closed did a far superior job than their current butcher.
Variation - lots of it without a whole lot of variables.
I might be tempted to leave them on grass, sell one and put the other in the freezer (I mean is your freezer even big enough for 2?) and that way you’ve only got one cow to eat if you’re not in love with the flavour.
[QUOTE=SmartAlex;7700887]
Beer fed would probably take the cake. Americans are used to the taste of corn fed. The grass fed is the primo moral high ground. And that’s why I eat it. It’s the ultimate environmentally friendly, healthy, low petroleum, cattle frolicking in meadows full of butterflies choice. And there’s a lot to be said for that. People who love Grass Fed will tell you it puts grain fed to shame. But it tastes different.[/QUOTE]
That is not so, the carbon footprint of grass fed is higher than grain fed by about 1/3.
Look it up, there are many good studies out there showing why and explaining all the reasons that is so.
We have also had this discussion here before, you can find plenty there too.
Here is some on this, from an unbiased source:
http://extension.psu.edu/animals/beef/grass-fed-beef/articles/telling-the-grass-fed-beef-story
The reason you don’t hear that is because grass fed producers are stars at marketing, or have grass fed that really has had other to eat than grass for the last few weeks.
OP, you can enjoy your beef any way, grass or grain fed, by cooking it right for what you have.
Most grass fed, unless very young and that means very small animals, once a steer gets bigger, there is a reason grain fed is the gold standard for that kind of beef eating experience.
I would have someone that raises traditional beef locally, or like your slaughter plant owner, tell you what your steers will do best with, because they are the ones that really know.
Being angus, if they really are full angus, will help some, as they are naturally more apt to marble even without grain.
Being older, I am not sure anything is going to help much now, other than being on “full feed”, on a grain ration, for a few weeks, unless they are so old by now as that even being questionable, but it will help some.
At today’s prices on the hoof, selling these to someone to finish on grain, that knows how to and buying the beef as you need it really makes more sense.
If you like raising them on grass, do buying them light and selling them to someone to finish on grain would work best for all, you, the steers and the ones that will eventually consume them.
I’m another that vastly prefers the flavor of grass fed beef, it’s leaner and cleaner. The so called highly touted marbeling of fat In grain finished beef is not to my taste and usually found left on my plate at the end of a meal. I eat every scrap of grass fed.
I think it depends a lot on what part of the beef and its flavor you like. I have family members who aren’t wild about grass-fed but they are self proclaimed fat and gristle lovers. DH and I would prefer to never eat anything but grass fed.
Do you like breast or thighs when eating chicken? Kind of similar to the difference between grass or grain fed.
