Freezer beef.. mine not so good..

[pressfit]

Last year I bought half a calf from on of my buds a church.. had it killed aged and vacuum sealed.. and a local processor.. nice clean respected place.. the hamburger is wonderful.. but the steaks and roast have a "funky" smell when cooking and not so good a taste.. espically the fat.. if you get a bite with the fat..(which I love to eat) you have to spit it out.. I asked the processor about it and they said I had mis handled the vacuum sealed cuts..damaged the plastic.. and that the beef had taken on the freezer smell.. I was sceptical... So me and a cohort split another one last fall.. This time I got mine wrapped in freezer paper.. well so far.. we have only had a few roasts.. you can eat them..but man they have a un plesant smell.. I ask my bud about his and just the night before they cooked one in a crock pot and had to throw the whole thing out because of the smell... someone told me it was because they are finished on grass and not grain... does this make sense?..btw.. I have a cast iron stomach.. ive eaten coon and muskrat..

 

[RUGER]

You definately shouldn't have to have a cast iron stomach to eat beef.

Did you have the second one processed at the same place?

I have a friend whos dad raises beef and sells it.
I had a steak from him last year and it was amazingly good.

Sounds to me like you need to change processors.

As for what they are finished on, I have no idea if it matters or not.

Someone on here sells beef also, I have had the burger and it was amazing too.
Can't remember their name though.

 

[fishboy1]

could be a couple things.
1. Feed. Cattle that have been eating wild onions will stink so bad that your clothes will smell like a Cajun cabdriver in July just from processing the beef. I have been told that they will get an unpleasant smell/taste from certain other weeds as well.

2. Processing. It is possible that the beef was not handled properly. It is also possible that it was aged in a manner not to your liking. Aging beef will make it more tender and change the flavor. Some people like it heavily aged. Like Big fuzzy block of mold aged. Way too much for me.

3. Freezing. Was it frozen solid when you got it from the processor? If you stack half a beef in your freezer unfrozen it will take a LONG time for that giant block of beef to freeze.

4. Condition of the cow that was processed. Was it healthy? Was it doctored prior to processing? Could it have been heavily stressed, injured, sick ?

Chances are it was #1 or #2 if you and your friend both had "bad" beef. Sounds like the fat has gone rancid. Google the processor and see if anyone has posted negative comments.

 

[WG Taxidermist]

I don't deal with cows very often but I have a lot of faimly that does and they've always said that if your going to eat one to finish it out on grain.

 

[300_mag]

We raise our own and ALWAYS finish them on grain and let them hang 21 days at the processor.

 

[Chapman]

From what I understand, the fat on a grass fed animal will be yellow and after being fed grain for a period of time the fat will turn white. The fat from a grass fed calf will have a different flavor. It sounds like your calf is right off pasture without being fed grain. I talked to a slaughterhouse owner once about butchering a steer right off of ryegrass since the calf would be fat and in good condition. He said "You won't like the taste of the meat coming straight off ryegrass without grain feeding him."

 

[JandSCattleCo]

Sounds to me that your fat is rancid. Personally, I greatly prefer the taste of grass fed beef (natural) to grain finishing (bland). I would expect that any hunter, used to eating wild game, would either have a preference for, or at least like grass fed beef. The taste difference is that of a earth tone, there is also a different consistently when slicing and a slightly different marbling, but that is neither ere nor there as I simply wouldn't believe that not finishing on grain would give you an unpleasant taste/smell. If you didn't like the grass fed taste, you definitely would not like venison.

Coming from a family that raises beef cattle, finished on grain, and eating a TON of venison, grass fed beef tastes Horrible! Not finishing on grain does give it an extremely different taste. I had a meat science class in college and there was a large difference in texture, marbling, taste, etc in the two.

By the way, I love venison, but I trim ALL of the fat away. Horrible taste, but I love the meat.

 

[DaveB]

I just picked up half a cow from a Fellow TNDeer Member NBF7240, butchered by H&R Slaughter, 100% shrink wrapped, not grass fed.

We have eaten the burger and the sirloin.

Tastes great. Tender. No smell except cooking beef, rather pleasant. My Wife has a particularly sensitive nose and if there was anything amiss believe me she would say something.

Got 59.8% of the slaughter weight, pretty good I think.

As an additional thought, NBF7240 is a squared away guy, great family, Wife. Plus, he has a controlled feed Winchester in 06 so you know he is a good guy.

 

[Nimrod777]

I'd really like to try grass-fed versus grain-finished beef side by side sometime. But having a smell so bad you'd throw out a crockpot of meat, well that's almost GOT to be spoilage somewhere along the way. And if both are from the same processor, then suspicion has got to lie with the processing environment, equipment, or conditions. Could even be due to something else that was hanging nearby for the time it spent aging.

 

[DaveB]

Up here in Buffalo NY the big chain sells grass fed beef as an ultra-premium choice. Can't have problems like described above, this chain (Wegmans) really prides itself on quality.

I'd change butcher.

 

[Rackseeker]

I got a steak at Outback in Chattanooga the other night. It was the same way, had a little bad taste but could not hardly eat the fat. If hadn't been in a hurry I would have sent it back. Who knows where the beef is coming from and what it is fed. I was at a local grocery store a couple weeks ago and they had two different sections of beef. One was labeled from Mexico.

 

[Bowdacious]

My beef comes from Papaw's hill in Roane County. I really don't like store bought beef at all. You buy a pound of ground and do good to get 1/3 of meat after cooking. The only steak I order at a restaurant is filet because I am spoiled by farm raised.
If meat stinks when you open the pack, feed it to the dog. Yuck.

 

[muddyboots]

Buy one fron NBF7240 and u will have no problems.

 

[knoxvol]

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If it open grazed just before slaughter the meat will taste wild. One of my aunts gave us beef from a cow that had open grazed before slaughter. The meat tasted so bad we couldn't eat it.

You've got to keep the calf pinned up in a stall for a couple of weeks. Just feed it grain. I guess sweet feed would be best.

Keeping it pinned up in a stall is the key. Out running around in the pasture keeps its hormones stirring.
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[timberjack86]

I raise my own grass fed beef and once you have had that youll never want grain finshed beef again. Like fishboy said it could have been a weed or your butcher.

 

[NBF7240]

Intramuscular marbling is the fat that comes from 90 days of grain .....a bunch of grain. Or finishing an animal on high quality forage. Then there is the fat on the outside of cuts, grass fed beef are notorious for smelly or unpleasant fat on the outside of cuts. The reason for this could be the age of animal slaughtered
Or not finishing beef on high quality forage

There is a difference in grass fed and grass finished.

And the onions and weeds influencing the taste is a myth, in fact if said cow eats to many onions it will die.

 

[Beekeeper]

If we are going to put one in the freezer, we put it up and feed it grain for about 6 weeks. We have killed grass finished beef and had good results depending on the time of year. When things first start to green up in early spring, some of the first things to sprout are green onions, garlic, mustard and some others that can cause your beef to be off flavor. If the cows are on good pasture such as fescue,clover, bermuda or other good forage grasses the meat will not usually have an off flavor.

 

[huntinkev]

We raise our own and ALWAYS finish them on grain and let them hang 21 days at the processor.

Same here. They are fed grain for about 3 1/2 months. and hung 21 days

 

[Mike Belt]

We always put our steers or hogs up for 30-90 days and thy were fed grain and clear water daily. We never had a problem.

 

[Crosshairy]

Have you guys read any of the info about the health benefits of grass fed versus grain fed animals? Lots of chemical and biological changes to a cow from eating "unnatural" all-grain diets. Just one more reason to shoot more deer