Chapter 30 Meat Quality Identification

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, it is June.

Illino in June is not hot, with an average temperature of only about 20 degrees Celsius, making it a great place for summer vacations.

Su Zhen got up early on this day, today is a very ordinary day, but for the ranch, today is very important, because soon the first batch of cattle in the ranch will be slaughtered next month, and today is the day to do beef grade identification.

Some people may wonder that it has been less than a year since Su Zhen bought the ranch, how can the cattle be slaughtered? In fact, Su Zhen didn't expect it.

Each country in the world has its own way of dividing beef, and the United States has two grades, which are the production grade and the quality grade corresponding to the yield and quality. Relatively speaking, the quality grade is obviously more important, and the quality grade of American beef is determined by the marbling of the beef combined with the age, sex and weight of the cattle, and the age requirement for the highest grade of beef is 9-30 months.

At the beginning, there were nearly 1,000 little bulls among the cattle purchased by Su Zhen, and now they have met the slaughter age, and according to Old John's observation and judgment, the weight of these calves has also reached the best stage of slaughter, although it can be raised for a longer time, but it is indeed a little cost-effective compared to the pasture to be consumed, and the number of bulls in the pasture is enough, and if this group of young bulls is not slaughtered as soon as possible, it will affect the stability of the herd, so the fate of this group of young bulls was decided.

The grade of beef has a huge impact on the price of beef, and the price of different grades can be said to be very different.

U.S. beef is graded as Prime, which is typically sold directly to fine dining restaurants for up to $1 per kilogram.

The worst canner is the eighth grade of beef, which, as the name suggests, is less than a dollar for canned beef.

The grade between is the preferred grade (choice), the steak sold in the general supermarket is mostly this grade, the upper grade ('), this level is generally sold as shredded beef, strips or bone-in meat, standard grade (standard), mostly meat in the hind leg of the cow, commercial grade (commercial) out of the large pieces of beef outside the front parts, comprehensive grade (utility) similar to combination meat, It is the meat of some good parts of the meat that has been cut and the remaining pieces are pressed together and processed manually to become a whole piece of meat. Cutter grade unformed beef crumbs, also known as minced meat.

The price of grade 2 to 5 beef generally ranges from US$50 to US$5 per kilogram depending on the grade. It may seem that the price is much higher than the price of more than ten yuan a pound in China in this era, but the price range in the United States has indeed been maintained until after 2010.

At that time, the price of beef in China had increased several times, and there were a lot of indiscriminate refills, just take the beef used in hot pot as an example, Su Zhen originally liked to eat beef hot pot in his last life, twenty or thirty yuan a big plate, and the texture is also very beautiful, very cost-effective, isn't it? But after a friend told him the true appearance of these so-called snowflake fat cows, he never ordered fat cows again when he ate hot pot, for what? Because in order to increase profits, many hot pot restaurants in China use very poor leftovers to crush the beef, mix in fat, press it with a machine and freeze it, and then turn it into a whole piece of beef, and then slice it with a meat planer, it becomes a very beautiful piece of "snowflake" beef, which is actually a combination of meat, but the quality is worse than that of the combination meat in the United States. (It's true, I have a friend who works in Hot Pot City, and that's how their "Snowflake" fat cow came from, and of course not all hot pot restaurants do it this way).

In fact, the grading of beef in the United States is very strict, beef below grade five is not allowed to be sold in the refrigerated area, must be placed in the designated freezer, and seven or eight grade beef is more bought for pets to eat (so if you go abroad, try not to buy beef below $3 / pound, a pound is about 0.45 kilograms, almost a catty, that is basically very poor meat, but it is estimated to be better than twenty or thirty yuan a pound in China).

Su Zhen is not worried about the results of this appraisal at all, one is because of his confidence in the effect of space water, and the other is that the ranch has been slaughtered many times before, Old John and all the cowboys have been evaluated according to their own experience, basically the key parts of each cow have basically reached the excellent level, and the inferior parts have also reached the preferred level, the only thing that cannot be determined is the specific data.

It is actually very convenient to identify the grade of beef in the United States, as long as you send an invitation to the office of the local Ministry of Agriculture, you can directly come to the sampling inspection, and it is OK to issue a certificate after the identification.

The Ministry of Agriculture arrived at the farm at ten o'clock, and a big truck and pickup truck came, Su Zhen took a look, the big truck was a mobile slaughterhouse, in addition to the slaughtering equipment and some instruments, Su Zhen didn't know what to do with the road, but Su Zhen was not interested in these, the only thing he cared about was the identification results and certificates.

The Yankees were very efficient, and after getting off the bus, they only had a short exchange, and then went to the herd to select cattle under the leadership of Old John and Su Zhen.

As soon as the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture entered the pasture, they sighed at the quality of the forage, and led the middle-aged man to pull up a few grasses and observe, and said to Su Zhen, "Your forage is very good, although it is just ordinary alfalfa grass and some other common grasses, but it is much higher, and whether it is moisture or freshness, it is much better than ordinary grass, and even better than some improved grasses, which is very good for the meat quality of cattle." ”

Su Zhen nodded, and said in his heart, can it be irrigated by his own space water, he has to add space water to the lake every month, isn't it just to ensure the rise of pasture.

However, this is my top secret, so naturally I can't say it to the outside world, so I can only infer that it may be such a good environment.

Soon these people began to work with the help of the cowboys, but the identification of beef grades is not so quick to end, at least it will take a few hours, after picking out three cows to be slaughtered and identified, Su Zhen threw the rest of the matter to Old John, and left by himself, what are you doing if you don't leave? Do you watch them kill cattle? Su Zhen was not so interested.

And there is no need to arrange food and drink for these staff, these are all solved by themselves, and if you invite them to dinner, it will be considered as bribing them, which is very different from in China.

A few hours later, the identification results were sent to Su Zhen, but Su Zhen looked at it and his head was big, and on a table, a cow was divided into more than a dozen parts except for the internal organs, all with different names.

Americans don't eat offal, the offal of cattle slaughtered in the pasture, except for Su Zhen's family occasionally getting some tripe to taste, the others are used as cattle dog food, Su Zhen also recommended it to cowboys, cowboys including Old John are not sensitive, even Rachel never touches it, the only exception is Grace, after tasting a scallion fried tripe made by Liu Ru, she loves it very much.

There is a large list of various data behind the table, which is the result, and Su Zhen didn't look at it carefully, and actually couldn't understand the technical terms, but looked at Old John.

Old John, who was very familiar with Su Zhen, naturally understood what he meant, and said, "The appraisal results are very good, the key parts have reached the excellent level, and the grade of the secondary parts is also good, which is even better than we expected, and the economic value is very high." ”

Su Zhen is very satisfied with this, the certificate and some other certificates can be sent in a few days, these all represent this green dollar, it is better to open a ranch, you don't have to do anything, eat and drink every day, ride a horse and yo-yo dog, not to mention how comfortable it is these days, but this seems to be a little boring, should you find something else to do.