Sho Spaeth

Much of the slaughtered cattle intended for sale to consumers in the United States and abroad is assessed for quality and yield. To standardize these assessment, regulatory bodies like the USDA and the Japan Meat Grading Association (JMGA) have developed grading systems, which provide consumers and producers with the ability to quickly understand the usable yield from cattle, as well as the quality of the meat.



Yield grades: They are determined by using key criteria that give producers an estimate of how much of an animal’s carcass will result in meat that can be sold. To determine the yield grade, USDA inspectors use a formula with four related values: the thickness of the fat cap above the ribeye; the area of the ribeye; the “hot carcass weight” (or the weight of the animal after its head, skin, and internal organs have been removed); and the percent of the hot carcass weight that is made up by the weight of the kidney, pelvic fat, and heart.



Yield grades are only really useful for producers—do you need to know how much saleable meat came from the heifer that produced your ribeye?—but the method used for determining the thickness of the ribeye fat cap and the area of the ribeye is also used to determine the quality grade of a beef carcass.



Quality grades: To determine the quality grade of beef, inspectors “rib” the animal, cutting between the 12th and 13th rib bone to examine characteristics of the bone matter, flesh, and intramuscular fat content.



The condition of the bone matter (i.e. how much cartilage has transformed to bone tissue) and the flesh (i.e. how pale it is in color) are used to determine the physiological age of the animal, which correlates with tenderness. The amount of intramuscular fat, or marbling, correlates with juiciness.

Beef Grading 101

In America, most, but not all, beef sold in grocery stores, butcher shops, and steakhouses is graded by the <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2013/01/28/whats-your-beef-prime-choice-or-select">USDA</a>. Producers are not required to submit their beef for USDA grading; it is entirely voluntary.



The three quality grades consumers often encounter are Prime, Choice, and Select. All beef cattle within these grades range from 30- to 42-months-old (again, this is the physiological age, not the chronological age).



Prime: The best of the best beef—the most tender, with the most marbling. Prime beef must be produced from steers (castrated males) and heifers (young cows that haven’t given birth).
 
Choice: The next best beef; almost as tender as prime, with moderate marbling. Choice beef can be produced from steers, heifers, and cows.
 
Select: Tougher, leaner beef, with a minimum of marbling. Like Choice, Select beef can be produced from steers, heifers, and cows.
 


In addition, there are several lower grades of meat.



Standard and Commercial: Often sold as ungraded or store-brand meat.
 Utility, Cutter, and Canner: Rarely, if ever, sold to consumers raw; used to make ground beef or processed meat products, like (probably) <a href="https://www.wired.com/2009/08/st-whatsinside-2/">Slim Jims</a>.
 


According to meat scientist Diana Clark, who works for the <a href="https://certifiedangusbeef.com/en">Certified Angus Beef brand</a>, the USDA quality grades are very reliable. “The USDA has done a great job of truly identifying quality,” Clark says. If you simply choose Prime or Choice steaks, you will get tender, well-marbled beef. Master butcher Kevin Smith of Seattle’s <a href="https://beastandcleaver.com/">Beast and Cleaver</a> agrees. “For a person going to a supermarket, if they want a trophy cut steak, their best bet is going with Prime.”



What to look for: USDA Prime or Choice Shield stamps on packaging. While you might see beef advertised as Prime or Choice, the only way to be certain it is of that specific grade is if it bears the official USDA Shield stamp.

USDA Meat Quality Grades

Meat scientist Diana Clark notes that beef packers will prioritize orders from premium butchers and top steakhouses, as well as beef brands like Certified Angus Beef, because they are willing to pay more for beef that matches their own criteria for quality. This means that the beef you’ll find in supermarkets might not be as high quality as the beef you’ll find in good butcher shops or at premium steakhouses, even if the USDA quality grade is the same. And the same may be true of branded beef versus unbranded grocery store beef.



Master butcher Kevin Smith agrees, noting it comes down to buying power and the clientele grocery stores or steakhouses serve. “The prices and quality differences in beef in different supermarkets is massive. I think you can get a strip steak for $9 a pound at a QFC (a chain supermarket), and I think it’s about $34 at a PCC (a higher-end organic market chain),” Smith says. “Obviously high-end steakhouses are going to have the buying power and customer base to buy the best Prime beef, and the lower-end ones probably don’t.”



For branded beef, Clark says, “Good brands will list on their websites the specifications an animal needs to meet in order to qualify” for the brand. Some specifications are based on sound meat science, like the degree of marbling and age of the cattle at slaughter; others may be focused on consistency in sizing or appearance; and there are some that may just be marketing copy.



When choosing individual steak cuts, Clark says it’s best to focus on and examine the degree of marbling and fineness of the muscle grain. Smith concurs. “The more marbled it is, the juicier and more tender it’s probably going to be—that’s a good guideline, for sure,” Smith says. For cuts where the marbling and muscle grains aren’t immediately apparent, like flank or a whole tenderloin in vac-sealed packaging, it’s better to rely on the USDA quality grade.

Not All Prime Is Equal: Beef Purchasing Power and Quality

A lot of beef in the U.S. are sold by companies and industry associations under brands, like Certified Angus Beef (the first branded beef program established in the country), which can make things a little confusing, as these brands often use the breed names of cattle in their names.



Branded beef programs establish standards for the beef they buy and sell at a premium over the cost of commodity beef—beef that has simply been USDA graded—and they can submit these standards to the USDA for certification. Once approved, the USDA ensures that the branded beef adheres to those standards. You can find a <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/LPSCertifiedBeefProgramComparison.pdf">comparison of the different certified programs here</a>.

What Is Branded Beef?

Master butcher Kevin Smith notes that some whole animal and specialty butcher shops, like Beast and Cleaver, only offer beef that hasn’t been graded by USDA inspectors, because the small farms they work with do not produce enough volume to justify the cost of submitting their beef for grading.



But that does not mean the beef they source isn’t comparable to USDA Prime or Choice graded beef. “We know for a fact that the beef is always going to be between Choice and Prime, because of the age of the animal, aging, and the feed.” Of the beef he sells, which you can examine in our butchery videos and the video demonstrations of his recipes, Smith says, “It’s at least Prime; sometimes it’s beyond Prime—we call it ‘super Prime.’”



When shopping at a specialty butcher, Smith suggests speaking to the butchers about the quality of the meat if you’re curious about how it compares with USDA-graded meat. “They should be able to tell you where the farm is and what USDA grade it should be, if it was going through the grading system,” he says.

High-Quality Ungraded Beef

Wagyu refers to <a href="http://www.jmi.or.jp/en/info/index1.html">four main breeds of Japanese beef cattle</a> that produce a large amount of intramuscular fat. “Wa” is an archaic name for Japan and is used to denote Japanese things, like “wafu” (traditional Japanese cuisine) and “wafuku” (traditional Japanese clothing); “gyu” means beef.



Wagyu produced in Japan is <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20240303094704/http://www.jmga.or.jp/standard/beef/">graded under a system overseen by the Japan Meat Grading Association (JMGA)</a>. (Wagyu raised in the United States, if it’s graded, is graded under the USDA grading system.)



Unlike the USDA grades, the JMGA yield grade is often displayed to consumers along with the meat-quality grade. If you’ve shopped for wagyu or seen it on menus, it’s likely that you’ve seen something advertised as “A5 wagyu”; the “A” indicates the yield grade, and the “5” indicates the quality grade.



Japanese yield grades: It ranges from A to C, with A being the highest yield. Like the USDA yield grades, this information isn’t particularly useful for consumers. It is even less useful for American consumers, as most of the Japanese wagyu sold in the U.S. has an A yield grade.
 
Japanese quality grades: It ranges from 1 to 5, with 5 representing the highest quality.
 
Beef Marbling Score (BMS): The Japanese system has a separate score for the amount of marbling in wagyu, called the Beef Marbling Score. This score ranges from 1 to 12, and it determines the quality grade, with 12 representing the most marbling. For context, A5 wagyu has a BMS between 8 and 12; USDA Prime meat would receive a BMS of 5.
 


According to Hiroko Shimbo, a Japanese chef and cooking instructor at the Culinary Institute of America who has previously worked closely with Japanese wagyu distributors, the quality and cuts of Japanese wagyu available in the United States is very limited. It’s most common to see A5 wagyu—very high-quality wagyu—and it’s rare to see cuts that aren’t trophy cuts.



Given the lack of availability, there isn’t all that much choice for American consumers. Shimbo says to look for snowy white intramuscular fat and vibrantly red flesh—if the flesh or fat is dull in color, it means the meat is past its prime.



Shimbo says when she buys Japanese wagyu for steaks, she pays attention to the beef marbling score, as she prefers relatively leaner meat. “A beef marbling score of 12 is too rich; 8—just at the border between A4 and A5—is fine.” She notes, too, that beef with the highest marbling scores of 11 and 12 typically are reserved for the highest-end restaurants.



Region-specific Japanese wagyu: There are also regional variations or brands of Japanese wagyu, the most famous of which are Kobe, Matsusaka, and Omi beef. Each one has unique quality standards surrounding the specific wagyu strains, diet, and rearing conditions, and these standards are enforced by producer associations, much like Designated Origin of Production products like Parmigiano-Reggiano. They consequently command a higher price than generic Japanese wagyu.

Japanese Wagyu Grades

Wagyu produced in America is distinctly different from wagyu produced in Japan.



Japanese wagyu comes from specific strains of wagyu cattle, and the cattle are raised in specific conditions and on specific diets (rice straw, barley, wheat bran, soybean meal, for example), and the beef is graded according to the Japanese beef grading system.



According to the <a href="https://wagyu.org/for-producers/breed-history">American Wagyu Association</a>, the first wagyu cattle were imported to the U.S. in 1975, but much of the wagyu produced today descends from cattle imported in the 1990s.



American wagyu is not graded on the Japanese system. Most American wagyu isn’t 100% wagyu—it is typically beef harvested from cattle crossbreeds, often wagyu-Angus crossbreeds. As a result, the degree of marbling isn’t as elevated as Japanese wagyu. There are ongoing efforts to raise American wagyu cattle that are closer to 100% wagyu strains, which has led to some more confusing terminology.



Full-Blood American wagyu: Beef from cattle with 100% wagyu parentage.
 
Pure-Bred American wagyu (aka F4): Beef from cattle with 94% (or higher) wagyu strains. Crossbreed of full-blood wagyu with F3.
 
F3 American wagyu: 87% wagyu DNA. Crossbreed of full-blood wagyu with F2.
 
F2 American wagyu: 75% wagyu DNA. Crossbreed of full-blood wagyu with F1.
 
F1 American wagyu: 50% wagyu DNA. Crossbreed of full-blood wagyu with Angus.
 


It’s important to note that to date, there is no regulatory body that oversees the strain-purity of wagyu cattle raised in America.

American Wagyu vs. Japanese Wagyu

Lots of butcher shops and counters proudly advertise their aged beef, but the fact of the matter is all American beef is aged in some form or another.



Once beef sides are graded, they’re either hung whole to age or they’re cut into primals, vacuum-sealed, and aged. In both cases, aging the meat improves its tenderness. Meat scientist Diana Clark notes, “Muscles have these enzymes called calpains, which are working even after the animal has been harvested, breaking down the meat to make it more tender. Typically, around 14 days to 21 days, although you can definitely age it longer.”
 


Clark notes that as a result, one of the most useful pieces of information you can ask your beef purveyor, whether a butcher or a supermarket, is the pack date of the beef. “We always recommend getting about 21 days of age on it, if you can,” Clark says.



Master butcher Kevin Smith agrees, noting, “We have a minimum requirement—the bare minimum of what we accept—of 21 days aging of the whole carcass. Usually, it’s about 30 days before [the beef] comes to us.”



Once that initial aging period ends, beef purveyors have the option of aging their beef further using dry- or wet-aging. When you see aged meat advertised at a store, this second, extended aging is what they’re referring to.

Aging Beef

Beef subprimals are placed in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment and allowed to sit for typically at least 28 days in a sort of a controlled rotting process. The interior loses moisture, and the exterior grows mold. Once aged, the exterior rot and mold is cut away. There is no hard-and-fast rule for how long the aging process can extend—Kevin Smith, for example, has aged beef for as long as 300 days.



Dry-aged meat is firmer, drier, and generally cooks faster than unaged meat. The process dries out the meat slightly, concentrating its beefy flavor. Enzymes in the meat also break down connective tissue, tenderizing the meat. Finally, the dry-aging process also imparts another dimension of flavor as fungal species colonize the surface of the meat, similar to aged cheese, adding an umami “funk” as the fungal enzymes break down the meat’s proteins into amino acids. (Fungi also have enzymes which break down collagen, further tenderizing the meat.) Dry-aged meat is typically more expensive.



Pros: Lends a distinctly pleasant funky flavor to beef, with stronger blue cheese–like notes from longer aging processes; tighter grain of meat; less moisture, which leads to quicker and better browning.



Cons: Takes a lot of space and time and reduces yield from subprimals; consequently, more expensive.



What to look for: Due to moisture loss from the dry-aging process, a trimmed dry-aged steak will typically have a tighter grain structure than an unaged one. It should be dry to the touch and firmer than unaged steak.



Best for: Straightforward seasoning and cooking. When you buy dry-aged steak, you are paying a premium for the flavors imparted to the meat by the dry-aging process. As such, dry-aged meat should be seasoned and cooked simply; you don’t want to mask that flavor with strong marinades or sauces.

Dry-Aged Beef

Individual steak cuts or subprimals are vacuum-sealed in a bag, encouraging enzymatic tenderization while stalling spoilage. The beef is typically aged between 28 and 40 days.



Wet-aged meat is more tender, with more concentrated beefy flavor, than unaged meat. The process relies solely on the beef’s natural enzymes, which break down connective tissue and improve flavor over time. It does not take on the funkier flavors produced by dry-aging. While more expensive than unaged meat, it is typically less expensive than dry-aged meat.



Pros: More tender and juicy beef. Amplified beef flavor.



Cons: Takes time and is thus more expensive than unaged beef. None of the added funky flavor notes from dry-aging.



What to look for: Due to limited exposure to oxygen, wet-aged beef looks very dark red, almost purple, when still in its packaging. Wet-aged steaks should not be swimming in liquid. Avoid steaks with any pale green discoloration.



Best for: Wet-aged beef has slightly more concentrated beefy flavor than unaged beef, but it does not have the deep funky notes of dry-aged beef. You can use it for a wider variety of applications since you don’t have to take care to highlight those (pricey) funky flavors. Cook it up simply or pair with a marinade; serve it up with strong sauces or with no sauce at all.

Wet-Aged Beef

There’s aged beef and then there’s old beef, or beef produced from older steer and cows. Something of a specialty in northern Spain, where it’s referred to as “vaca vieja,” there are several restaurants in the U.S. that offer steaks cut from older cattle. Chef Alex Raij, of the restaurants Txikito, La Vara, and Saint Julivert in New York City, recalls a particularly memorable preparation of meat cut from an old dairy cow during a trip to Spain. “I couldn’t believe the flavor,” she says.



However, the practice of eating older cattle is in fact widespread, even in the U.S. Meat scientist Diana Clark observes, “All beef in the U.S. is at some point going to end up in our food system; we do have older animals readily available.” That said, it’s unlikely you’ll find steaks cut from older cattle in the grocery store meat section; you’ll likely have to ask a specialty butcher.



The flavor of old beef is stronger, with more minerality, than beef you’ll find in most butcher cases, grocery stores, and steakhouses simply because of the age of the animal. Clark notes that the age of the animal will also make the meat tougher. “As an animal gets older,” Clark says, “collagen forms permanent cross-linkings that can’t break down under heat. Basically, it’s creating more chewy stuff in the meat; the meat itself is tougher.” As an animal grows older, the flesh will also take on a darker color and stronger flavor. “You get more myoglobin—the oxygen carrier in muscle—in the meat. The center structure of myoglobin is iron, so it gives the meat more of that iron-y flavor.”

Old vs. Aged Beef

If you’re very lucky, you may find a butcher that sells koji-aged beef.



The difference between koji-aged beef and dry- and wet-aged beef is that the beef is given a surface treatment of koji, or a mold known as aspergillus oryzae. (The same mold is used to make sake, miso, and soy sauce.)



The process is similar to the one used to dry-age meat, as dry-aged primals, subprimals, or individual steaks become covered in beneficial mold as they sit in their temperature- and humidity-controlled environment. Koji-aging, however, works much faster. “It’s amazing what koji does,” master butcher Kevin Smith says. “We koji-age beef subprimals, as well as pork and duck. We use 5% of the weight of the meat in koji and cover it and leave it for seven days, and that meat—which is already [aged] 21 to 30 days—will honestly taste like a 70-day dry-aged steak.”



Jeremy Umansky, chef-owner of Larder Delicatessen and Bakery in Cleveland, and the co-author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Koji-Alchemy-Rediscovering-Mold-Based-Fermentation/dp/160358868X?tag=chefsteps02-20">Koji Alchemy: Rediscovering the Magic of Mold-Based Fermentation</a>, explains, “Using koji condenses and accelerates the process of enzymatic change. In 48 hours, the flavor of the meat is akin to a 40- or 45-day dry-aged piece of meat.”



Some koji-aged meat is further distinguished from dry-aged meat in that the koji-inoculated exterior isn’t carved away, as is the case with the moldy exterior of dry-aged meat. But, in the end, the results of koji-aging aren’t so wildly different that they’re indistinguishable from other aging methods.



The crux of koji-aging is leveraging proteases to break down proteins into amino acids, such as glutamic acid, which gives the beef that umami, savory, funky, nutty flavor. Proteases also tenderize meat.



“Koji, when it works on proteins, creates compounds that smell yeasty, that smell and taste umami, [and] there’s floralness you can pick up, notes of cellar or damp basement ... all these things you want in aged meat,” Umansky says. “You eat a koji-cultured steak next to a dry-aged next to a wet-aged, they’re all noticeably different, but they all have the amalgamation of what we consider ‘aged flavor.’”
 


Our own <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/rapid-dry-aged-steaks">Rapid Dry Aged steak recipe</a> uses shio koji to demonstrate the efficacy of koji—give it a try!

 
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Replicate the bold, nutty flavors of good dry-aged beef with a few funky ingredients and sous vide.

Steak From the Future: The Modernist Strategy to Dry Age Beef

Koji-Aged Beef

The <a href="https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/meat-fish/beef-farm-table#2">USDA states that all beef cattle start out eating grass, but three-quarters of cattle beef then are grown to maturity, or finished, on a diet of corn and other grains</a>, although other <a href="https://www.montana.edu/extension/broadwater/blog-article.html?id=21908">sources</a> put that figure at about 95%.



Technically speaking, then, most beef sold to consumers is grass-fed to some degree.



Grain-fed: Cattle that has been brought to maturity on a diet of grain or grain products in feedlots. Again, this is most beef you’ll find in stores. The diet produces well-marbled beef, and the cattle mature to ideal harvest weight relatively quickly. <a href="https://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/beef/3004/16680">Grain-fed cattle generally produce more tender beef, with an almost sweet beefy flavor</a>. This is sometimes referred to as “grain-finished” meat.



<a href="https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/2021-02/RaisingClaims.pdf">Grass-fed</a>: Cattle that feed on grass and forage for their lifetimes. They are not confined to feedlots, and they cannot be fed grain or grain by-products. The diet and growing conditions produce leaner beef. As a result, the meat is a little tougher than grain-fed beef, with more minerality. Grass-fed beef is typically more expensive, as the <a href="https://newsroom.unl.edu/announce/beef/3004/16680">cattle take longer to reach the ideal harvest weight</a>.



All the experts consulted for this piece emphasized that while you can make general observations about the characteristics of beef depending on these diets, ultimately the tenderness and marbling—the quality of the beef—depends not just on the diet but also the breed and the way in which the cattle are raised and the way the beef is aged after harvesting.



For example, master butcher Kevin Smith sells beef that comes from cattle that are just under 3 years of age, and they are fed a diet of 80% grass and 20% grain, and the grain is in the form of non-GMO barley grown on the farm on which they’re raised.

Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Beef

There are many different breeds of cattle used to produce beef. However, in the U.S., most beef is produced from American Angus or Angus crossbred cattle.



The differences in breeds are quite pronounced, both in terms of the characteristics of the beef they produce—marbling, tenderness, carcass yield—and how well-adapted they are to the environments in which they’re raised—some breeds thrive in hotter environments, for example, whereas others are better suited to more temperate climates.



For consumers, meat scientist Diana Clark says selecting beef by breed is less useful than selecting it for quality. “The quality is more important than the breed itself,” she says. “You can have a high-quality piece of meat from many different kinds of breeds. Genetics and nutrition are key. Marbling is a very heritable trait in cattle, so it’s definitely something you can select for, but you need nutrition to provide that marbling.”



Master butcher Kevin Smith agrees. “Breed is really important, but the way it’s raised is equally important. If it’s 100% wagyu, you can feed that animal pretty much anything, and it’s going to have tons and tons of intramuscular fat,” he says. “You then can have a grass-fed animal that’s very, very marbled. If you took that exact same animal and fed it with barley and corn, it will be even more marbled. But the 100% wagyu animals are always going to have more intramuscular fat than Hereford beef, which is going to be very lean. You could feed Hereford cattle loads and loads of corn and barely—you can increase the fat content—but you can’t change the genetics of the animal.”

Cattle Breeds

Whenever you go to a steakhouse, a butcher, or even the grocery store, you’re presented with a lot of industry jargon and confusing marketing terminology. 
 
From the diet and breed of the animal to the yield and quality grades, as well as how extensively it has been aged, there’s just a lot of information to sort through and analyze. 
 
To demystify the wide world of beef, we’ve put together this guide.

Decoding Beef Labeling