EDMONTON — Aging and chilling beef carcasses is the best way to tenderize meat.
“The post-slaughter environment is probably going to have more of an impact on tenderness than anything that happened to the live animal,” said Jordan Roberts of Agriculture Canada, who works with a team of researchers on meat quality at the research centre in Lacombe, Alta.
“If you properly age beef post-mortem, you’ll have good tenderness. We found 21 days is the optimum,” he said at the BeefTech seminar held Nov. 8-9 in Edmonton.
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Past beef quality audits show one in four steaks do not meet consumer standards.
“We have to have steak that people want to eat,” said Roberts.
A national beef quality audit expected to be complete early next year should determine whether improvements have been made.
Besides aging, other factors like genetics, diet, hormone implants, beta agonists, handling and transportation stress can affect beef quality.
“There is some evidence that a more aggressive implant strategy can lead to reduced tenderness but probably transport and handling close to slaughter have a greater effect,” he said.
Tenderness starts at the cellular level. Factors like the amount of fat in the muscle, enzymes, collagen and muscle fibre types influence tenderness, he said.
The genetic influence is complicated because tenderness is polygenic, meaning many genes contribute to it.
Pleiotopic genes may affect multiple traits and some are antagonistic.
For example, if producers are trying to increase marbling, increased back fat may also result with a reduced lean meat yield.
In the research world, tools have been developed to better assess carcasses without cutting them apart.
Technology like gas chromatography can look at specific molecules linked with flavour, fat and moisture. Special cameras measuring the rib-eye area, marbling and fat thickness are increasingly accurate.
The Dual X-ray Absorptiometry system provides a full carcass analysis.
Known as DEXA, the equipment can scan primal cuts and come up with an accurate estimate on the amount of muscle, fat and bone without cutting the meat.
It is currently under research and has not been released for commercial use.
DEXA is more accurate than the grading ruler currently in use and can go further than a visual grader’s assessment of lean meat yield.
Lean meat yield is a percentage of total muscle tissue, while salable meat yield looks at the boneless retail cuts from the primal cuts like the chuck, rib, loin and round.
“Lean meat yield is more biologically relevant. It is a measure of the total muscle, whereas salable meat yield is a better determinant of the carcass’s value relative to specific cuts. It is harder to select for salable meat yield than it is for lean meat yield,” Roberts said.
Near infrared spectroscopy can assess fat and moisture content.
