Utility Grade: Not So Prime Beef

Cathy2 wrote:In the meat area, I bought a three-inch thick Porterhouse steak for $3.99 per pound. They were selling Sirloin steaks for $2.99 per pound.

Regards,
Cathy2

Preface:
I love my Shop And Save.
Archer/Central is my normal location as well. I really like that store, and visit whenever I can. Been going for years. Love it.

BUT:
Word to the wise on meat grades. I see in their ad this week that "Gov't Inspected" T-Bone steaks are 2.99/lb. If the Porterhouse you got for 3.99/lb was "Gov't Inspected," you should read what that means, especially if you are not happy with the steaks. At a different store, I bought "Gov't Inspected" big, thick, ribeyes once about 15 years ago, and thought I had an awesome deal. Never looked twice at "Gov't Inspected" again. As they say, YMMV.

So, just sayin' - if you did, in fact, buy "govt inspected" porterhouses, and you are not happy with that purchase, that doesn't mean that their normal graded steaks are not fantastic. Different beast (quite literally - tee hee.)

Other stores also sell different grades of beef, pretty normally. They also advertise great prices on lesser grades, pretty normally. Again, I'm a frequent flier at Shop And Save - love it. I just wish I knew what all of the sausage names meant in the deli case. They have dozens of different ones.

seebee wrote:
BUT:
Word to the wise on meat grades. I see in their ad this week that "Gov't Inspected" T-Bone steaks are 2.99/lb. If the Porterhouse you got for 3.99/lb was "Gov't Inspected," you should read what that means, especially if you are not happy with the steaks. At a different store, I bought "Gov't Inspected" big, thick, ribeyes once about 15 years ago, and thought I had an awesome deal. Never looked twice at "Gov't Inspected" again. As they say, YMMV.

Yes, if I remember right, those are the steaks labeled simply as something like USGI beef, with no other grading information. I'm surprised they're as cheap as $2.99/lb there. Shop and Save is the only store I remember seeing Utility grade meat being sold, and even that was something like $5.99/lb for a ribeye (I have a picture somewhere, but I'd have to dig it up. ETA: Yeah, it says "USGI Utility Boneless Ribeye Steak Prod of USA, $5.99/lb"). I've never been brave enough to try it. I mean, I'm sure it's edible, but I can't imagine it's worth it even for that price.

Binko wrote:
Yes, if I remember right, those are the steaks labeled simply as something like USGI beef, with no other grading information. I'm surprised they're as cheap as $2.99/lb there. Shop and Save is the only store I remember seeing Utility grade meat being sold, and even that was something like $5.99/lb for a ribeye (I have a picture somewhere, but I'd have to dig it up. ETA: Yeah, it says "USGI Utility Boneless Ribeye Steak Prod of USA, $5.99/lb"). I've never been brave enough to try it. I mean, I'm sure it's edible, but I can't imagine it's worth it even for that price.

Yes, from my memory, USGI, with no grading info, and a suspect sale price, generally means Utility grade. I bought it...once. It was edible, if meaning "ate and did not perish" means edible. I immediately researched meat grades the following day after my insides were not happy. I wasn't badly ill or anything , but I had that sulfuric gassyness for a few days. I just felt like I had sewer gas in my tummy. I threw the few fat, meaty ribeyes I put in the freezer away after I figured out what I bought. That was my only experience, I haven't bought any since. I would try it again, but I stock my freezer with choice grade cuts when the sale prices are right, so I generally bypass the Utility grade sales, even though some of them are tempting.

From Modern Farmer: Demystifying USDA Meat Grades

It suggests it is not likely utility grade, but:

Standard and Commercial
What It Means: These are the last grades that are make it to stores, but they won’t be labeled because they aren’t special, and have little marbling. They can go by either “ungraded” or by the store’s house brand.

Grocery Store Takeaway: Take your grocery store’s house brand of beef with a grain of salt, it is likely just ungraded beef with a flashy label like “Blue Ribbon Select.”

Cooking Tips: Marinate the naturally tender cuts, and pair with a flavorful sauce like chimichurri or blue cheese butter. Again, tough, cheap cuts that benefit from slow, moist-heat cooking are the way to go here.

It's already been unwrapped and salted. I will do the slow cook reverse-sear. When we finally eat it, I will let you know.

Regards,
Cathy2

It may or may not be utility grade, but that article is wrong in the case of Shop and Save: "These remaining three grades won’t be appearing on any labels at the store (would you buy something called “Utility Meat?”)

Shop & Save does label them thus:

ALL the beef sold in the USA is Govt Inspected.
Even the small local meat processors have a Govt Inspector on-site, inspecting each and every carcass for disease.
Additionally, Meat Grades may be provided and the system now includes an electronic instrument that measures the marbling.
So unless you are doing your butchering in your backyard, it’s Govt Inspected and if you have a whole beef, there are people who bring a trailer to your backyard and do the work.
USDA Choice is the minimum I purchase for steaks and ven within the Grade, differences exist. Our local chain Pick n Save now owned by Kroger has excellent beef with Strips going for $7.99 bone-in this week , two steaks to the pack.
Last week it was T-Bones and Porterhouse at $6.99 and before that, Rib-eye at $6.99.
So unless I go to Joseph’s for dry aged and or Lestor’s for Buffalo, it’s Pick n Save.
BTW. Last week we did a tasting, not blind, with a Buffalo Rib-Eye($16 for 8oz) and a Pick n Save Rib-Eye. Neither of the three of us could discern any difference!
-Richard

Hi,

At a Greater Midwest Foodways Alliance symposium on Beef, we did a blind side-by-side tasting of Black Angus corn-fed and Tallgrass grass-fed beef. Overwhelmingly the corn-fed was preferred.

You may want to give that comparative a shot sometime.

Regards,
Cathy2

Hi,

For my Mother's birthday, I served this Porterhouse steak. I made no mention of it's pedigree, because it would be difficult to overlook.

On Sunday, I did unwrap the meat, heavily salted it, then let it air dry on a rack over a plate. I stuck it in the refrigerator until this morning. I took it out, trimmed off any dried out bits and put it in a 175 degree oven to cook. After three hours, it reached an internal temperature near 120 degrees. I then quickly seared and served it.

I sliced the meat, then waited for any comments one way or another. Nobody seemed unhappy with this steak. I had some Hollandaise sauce available in case the meat needed help. My family never really touched it. If it was tough as shoe leather, I was ready to made a quick variant of Beef Stroganoff, but it was never really needed.

After dinner was over, I told them how I acquired this meat, how much I paid and the reaction on this board. I recounted how someone else was so disappointed with their meat, they dug into the freezer to find others to throw away. They were quite amused.

Was it a lovely, well-marbled piece like Gary bought today? Nope, though my family enjoyed it.

Only time will tell if takes on the legendary status of the turkey served deep in the Obama administration, which was bought at the tail-end of the Bush administration. I will probably not live that one down.

Regards,
Cathy2

Thanks for the update. I'll give it a shot one of these days. I didn't see the $2.99/lb and $3.99/lb steaks when I went last week, but I may have just missed the sale. The marbling on some of those utility grade steaks are reasonable, at about select-to-choice level (look at my picture above--I've seen steaks sold as "utility" there with more marbling), so I assume it has to do with the age of the beef. Apparently, the grades are not just based on marbling, from what I looked up a year or so ago when I was trying to figure out why steaks with any marbling whatsoever were being sold as "utility" grade. See here for charts.

So here's the relevant info so you don't have to click through:



Carcass maturity Approximate live age
A 9 - 30 mos.
B 30 - 42 mos.
C 42 - 72 mos.
D 72 - 96 mos.
E > 96 mos.

I wonder if the utility grade at Shop and Save is because of more aged cattle, but I also have no experience with what a well-marbled utility grade of meat would taste and feel like vs a younger similarly marbled grade.

As many of you know, my in-laws were dairy farmers until about 15 years ago. I can honestly say that MOST of the beef that was served in their house would fall in the utility grade. When they needed beef to stock up the freezer, my father would select one of his older dairy cows, usually one with a failed udder whose like production had declined.

Now I know that the tendency of many would be to say "yuck," nothing would be further from the truth. My FIL would send the cow to the local processing plant and the cow would be processed into approximately four products - ground beef, soup bones, certain roast, and beef for canning. My MIL or one of the her BILs would take the canning meat and they would can a lot of the roasts - sometimes up to 50-100 quarts of meat that could be held at room temperature for years.

I will have to admit that the concept of canned beef sounded completely awful. The appearance of it is quart Mason jars did not dispel those thoughts. However, after she cooked off the beef with homemade noodles, I do not think that I have ever had a more flavorful meals.

This makes me wonder how Bistecca alla Fiorentina would be graded, since traditionally it's cut from older cattle.