Long and slow cooking. Crockpot is best...Like 8-10 hrs on low. I will say however, that having lived off of my own grass fed beef, tenderness was typically not a problem. Sounds like you might have gotten a raunchy cut (I must say that often, I'm not very impressed by the meat selection at Whole Foods, especially the grassfed). Please don't give up on grass fed based on that experience! Maybe try to find a local farmer (or small butcher shop) who sells it in small batches. Another thing that helps is making sure to cut it across the grain. Hope this helps!

I've tried different meat tenderizers and have never found one that makes much difference. A slow cooker makes a big difference though. Cook on low as msfuzz said.
I made a beef stroganoff last night that turned out very good. It was from Allrecipes.com's website. I'll put a link below for their slow cooker beef recipes sorted by rating and it's on that page. I doubled the Golden Mushroom soup and the cream cheese so it would make more gravy because I put a lot of meat in it for our big bunch, then served it with egg noodles. Yum : )

Here is a link that might be useful: Slow cooker beef recipes

Browning it first really helps - the slower the better. Then the long, low temp cooking.

Another 'trick' we'll do for the tougher cuts of grass-fed is a lengthy marinade - 1 part soy sauce, one part vinegar, splash of olive oil, what ever spices you like. 4 to 6 hours at room temp. We've been doing this with boneless, tied chuck roast and boneless tied arm roast, then roasting it at 350 until medium - its fork tender.

If you can do it, like others have said above, finding a small butcher who will age it properly before cutting it up is half the battle. The outfit we use ages beef for 21 days.

Grass fed is much leaner than grain fed beef.
The fat acts not only as flavor enhancer, but also a tenderizer.
When cooking grass fed beef, you need to treat it as you would the leanest and/or toughest cuts.
Long and slow as posted above is wonderful.
But, you can also very, very quickly sear the outside on a very hot surface (grill, cast iron, etc.), then slice thinly across the grain. Do not over cook or you may as well keep going and call it jerky!! :-)

For me, the health benefits of raising my own or buying locally are worth the extra effort.
When I raise my own, they are grass-fed up until the last 2-3 weeks, then fed a little grain to boost flavor just prior to butchering.

Another thing many don't realize is that beef grown for commercial sales are often herded/transported just prior to butchering which causes a tensing of the muscles (do YOU ever get tense in unfamiliar situations? same idea with an animal). Beef slaughtered in their comfortable environment will be more tender than those that are 'stressed'.
Unfortunately, there's no way to know this when purchasing beef from a grocery store.
They can be fed and finished perfectly, but if they are hauled to some plant for butchering, they're going to be tough. Period.

Sorry you had such a bad experience. You may want to try the local butcher option mentioned. Or get to know a farmer and buy direct. Good luck.

Deanna

Leaving meat out at room temp. for 4 to 6 hours is not safe. You will have way too much bacteria in that meat. You could easily get food poisoning from that.
I have tried using my pressure cooker on some cuts of beef and they still have been dry and tough. I think some are just that way no matter what you do to them. I don't buy round steak of any kind unless for jerky. I stick with chuck that has more marbling in it.

Even if you're going to cook the living daylights out of it afterwards, Linda?

I would echo the advice to try another farmer or butcher. I buy local grass fed beef and have not had problems. It has all been tender and flavorful. However, each time I buy, the farmer reminds me not to overcook it. It cooks up extremely fast.

I have never bought grass fed beef but as I type I am eating the cheapest toughest piece of meat ever turned into tender moist bbq sandwich

I vaccum marinated it in water salt vinigar and a dash of this and pumped it with a needle and put it in the fridge over night then crockpot on low for 9 hours

I wouldn't bother with all that if I didn't buy the beef at 1.50 a pound

The salt brine makes the meat juicy and vinigar breaks down some tissues

I'm not to scared to leave meat out for a few hours but every book says not to

DH and I have been entertaining the thought of getting a beef critter to finish off and between trolling various forums and buying several books on the subject of grass fed, I'm kinda disappointed to hear there may be issues with tenderness. Really, it only makes sense (LOL, lightbulb) that a critter would be leaner. I know when we butchered our pigs (although they were fed grain and alfalfa) they were very lean compared to store bought but flavorful and we didn't have any tenderness issues. To me, tenderness is a big issue and a deal-breaker. I'm hoping that Deanna's experience would hold true for us as well because I would hate to put that much expense into something only to be left with tough meat that can't be generally used without cooking for hours and hours. I know certain cuts might be that way but we both work here and sometimes meals are a last minute thing. Lori

That is a good tip about using salt water for meats. Thanks for the good suggestion.
Cooking won't neccesarily destroy all the bacteria. No food should be left at room temp. more than 2 hours. That is cumulative time. You have to figure you bring it home from the store, then perhaps it takes a while to get it into the fridge, then if you let is sit out while preparing the meat, plus time once it is cooked and back into the fridge, that all adds up.
Bacteria multiplys at room temp. every 15 min. You can start with just a small amount and within 2 hours you can huge amounts of bacteria growing. Enough to make you sick.
With enough bacteria, it may not all be killed during cooking. Marinating meats needs to be done in the fridge. Never on a counter.
Foods should not ever be left to cool down before going into the fridge, either. Foods need to be put in the fridge as soon as you finish eating them. That is an old wives sort of thing that people think you should do, let them cool off before refrigerating.
Please, take care, and keep yourself well. Did you know that it can take up to several weeks to get sick from food ? It doesn't just always happen soon after you eat something.

It takes considerable skill to produce really good grass fed/grass finished beef. You can't just stick an animal out on a forty acrea pasture and expect great results. An entire publication has been devoted to it (managed intensive grazing) for years, The Stockman Grass Farmer.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Who would ever think it is such a job finding GF beef? No one local around here that sells GF beef. Had to go a very, very long distance to get that tough cut.

Will try the crock pot and marinade. Also trying ground GF beef for meatball beef stew to try and get something chewable. The 'top round' cut I tried was like shoe leather.

Our beef is grass fed, although they do get a little grain from time to time but more as a treat. Grain makes a great training aid for a large animal...much easier to get them where you want them by shaking that grain bucket, having them come to you instead of you going to them :)

As for the tenderness, it hasn't been an issue when age is considered... the correct aging of the meat by the butcher and the age of the animal designated for that butcher. Both top and bottom round can end up dry and tough in a stove top cooking method, care has to be taken that it really is a simmer and not a low boil, lots of time allowed. I prefer the slow cooker or an oven stew if using for either round cut, and use chuck for chili, soups, stove top stews...

We eat home butchered beef, but even though the animals are certainly pastured, they are also fed a good amount of grain. My DH is a butcher, as was his daddy, and his granddaddy. They had a family abattoir. We've discussed grass vs. grain fed many times and I trust his opinion. My family are and have been beef producers.

Back in the early 80s there was a big push on in markets for grass-fed beef, because it was cheaper to produce. That was about the same time soy meal was being incorporated in minced beef, for the same reason.

If we want a tender, really good piece of meat to eat alone, it'll be grain-fed every time. However if grass fed beef are handled properly you should certainly be able to count on the meat for your more common cuts like round and stew meat and meat for burger.

Yes! Aging is important and also the age of the animal you slaughter. morz8 is right. Bull meat isn't going to give you the same finished product as a young steer, that's for sure. And if you been around meat producers and processors as long as I, you can eyeball a piece of beef and know right off the bat how you will cook it to its optimum potential.

If you come on to meat with tenderness issues, a pressure cooker and a crock pot, or slow.......slow oven roasting is your best friend. And yes, marbling does make meat more tender.

Can't compare fattening up a pig like graining a cow. Lean pigs are no tougher than fat ones. The fat in pigs isn't for the most part in large muscle marble, other than a few old heritage breeds.

Thankyou, Linda Lou, for pointing out the room temp issues. It is certainly no hardship to marinade beef in the fridge overnight and then roast it directly.

There is a lot of personal taste and preference in this, probably the best beef I've ever had was from old, no longer *useful* working oxen put out to pasture for 2 or 3 months to relax and fatten up. Amazing flavor, and again aging was the key to tenderness.

keepitlow

One other tip. Actually just confirming... Others have said tough meat requires long, long slow cooking at low temps. That is because the connective tissue which causes the toughness will tighten up if cooked at high fast heat or not long enough at low heat. Most of the time, the connective tissue actually softens and essentially becomes gelatin-like if it is cooked low and long. It adds to the meat-substance and flavor. And yes! Cut ACROSS the grain so you don't have long muscle-strands of meat in your mouth.

After all is said and done, I agree that sometimes there are individual chunks of meat that NOTHING will tenderize. In that case, you can always run them through a meat grinder and use them for SOMETHING, chili, tacos, spaghetti sauce, etc.

So, how do you get a rare steak out of grass-fed beef? Why would you buy it if you have to cook it forever to tenderize it? We had a local farmer give us some a few years ago and I ended up grinding it up and making dog food.

Lots I don't understand here.

Well, I have the guy cut the steaks 1-1/4 inch, so they're pretty thick. Cut off the bone - it adds a nasty flavor to the steak. And then we either do the marinade mentioned above for a few hours, or just brush on olive oil and salt it. Cooked over a hot charcoal fire until the first beads of red fluid start showing through, flip it, do the same, and then bring it inside and tent it for 10 minutes to relax. They're fantastic.

But again this is meat thats been aged 21 days. I find that its much harder to do with thinner steaks, because they can turn into shoe leather so quickly.

Why would you buy grass fed? For lots of reasons. If you are concerned about the animal fat content for health reasons and don't want to give up red meat for one. Or concerned about what is in commercially fed herds is another. Carmen, perhaps that farmer was culling out a beast, perhaps you got the meat un-aged. My inlaws butchered and it was done about as primitively as you could get. That was usually the fate of an aging milk cow when she was replaced. The carcass was literally strung up outside and the meat was cut without benefit of electric anything. What didn't fit in the freezer was immediately bottled up and canned. They were poor and had a large family, and it was good nourishing meat and not one iota of it was wasted, but eating a steak there was not my idea of fun. LOL.

One of the main reasons for grass fed/grass finished beef is that it contains high levels of CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)which fights obesity, contributes to lean muscle mass, and has been shown to prevent certain cancers. CLA vanishes rapidly in meat that is grain finished. CLA is found in the fatty parts of meat and dairy products from pasture raised and finished animals. Its virtual absence in industrial food is one of the things contributing to obesity in America.

Once again, very fine meat can be produced on pasture by experienced growers using Managed Intensive Grazing, but it's a steep learning curve. For more information on pastured meats, look at www.eatwild.com.

I think I'll just stick with my 'choice grade angus' beef from Sam's Club. We have plenty of very lean meat in our freezers from deer and have most of it ground since I prefer choice beef for steaks and roasts.

Carmen, you can serve flavorful tender great steaks grilled rare from grass fed beef by choosing the right cut for the right cooking method. Rib-eye, rib steak, strip/flank or skirt, porterhouse, T-bone ...and others if you want to take the time to marinate. I don't feel as confident serving very rare beef from commercial producers, not knowing how it's been handled from start to finish :)

I think a good deal of credit has to go to the butcher though. We lost the butcher we had used many years to cancer, the one who would let me stand in his shop as he cut to wrap my own meat, sometimes scolding me for not keeping up :) The butcher we used the next year sent a somewhat mediocre product back to us and we all used a lot of long term beef cooking methods that year. Butcher number three is expensive and not as convenient - we have to drive an hour to pick up the packaged beef - but I think you would have a difficult time distinguishing the meat from your choice from the store.

I always get a chuckle at the Hereford/Angus designation so commonly seen now as marketing in stores. BTW if you see packaging saying Angus Beef, see if it is worded as Certified Angus Beef. A lot of stores are just saying choice Angus, playing off the Angus Association's marketing label without having the expense of the advertising. Myself, it doesn't make any difference whether it's Hereford or Angus. I don't detect any difference between the taste of those two breeds. I believe a lot of what breeds are popular for beef production has as much to do with their profitability factors as anything and how they adapt to a specific producer's methods. Things like calf size, ease of calving, body size, meat to feed ratio, meat to fat ratio. Many breeds can produce fine beef, and hybrids often excel.

It's danged hard to get prime beef anymore, be it in a butcher shop or even restaurant. So many of them have switched because of cost. And I don't think they think anyone notices. LOL.

I used to raise longhorns and some of the best beef I've ever had came from a 6 year old cow that I butchered because I couldn't get her pregnant.
Round steak needs to be cooked slow, no matter if grain or grass fed.
Longhorn beef is very lean, especially when pastured and not grained. But, it's really delicious and I never had a problem with tenderness, assuming I cooked the right cuts the right way.

Just had someone give me buffalo that was "too tough to eat". Since I like rare meat, I cooked the buffalo rare and it was juicy and not tough. They over cooked their buffalo (high heat quickly) to the point is had no fat or moisture left.

The other option instead of dog food, it to can it. That 75 or 90 minutes in the pressure cooker will tenderize it. A friend shot a big feral pig on Catalina Island off the Calif coast and that was the only way you could get it tender enough to eat it. He had tried every other way to make edible what he decided was inedible. I canned a lot of it as chili verde (pork with green sauce) and it was wonderful. He was amazed as he was prepared to throw it all out.
Jim in So Calif

Beef farmer here, only around 100 head, so not a big operation, but we would never consider the grass fed option. Although it's cheaper for feed, it takes so much longer for a grass fed animal to reach finished weight than a grained animal. The animal being older at slaughter makes for tougher meat and without graining the marblings is subpar to grain fed. We've processed our own for all my life (not to mention previous generations) and can see the actual results of feeding as we cut and wrap.

We also sell halves, where the animal will get transported to a state inspected butcher shop a few miles away(no slaughtering of an animal unless an inspector is standing there observing the operation) Our customers are amazed at how tender the meat is. There is no way you will find a finished grass fed animal under 2 years old, ours are around 20 months, if not younger when finished.

Yes, the Angus producers have a great PR going. We raise Limousines, which look similar, but have a much longer body.

This is an interesting discussion - I buy my grass fed beef from my neighbor and we've discussed the economics of it - he keeps between 20-30 head, he'll sell calves in the fall and depending on request, he keeps 3 or 4 for feeding out. He sells the live animal at $1.00 a lb, what ever the age, which is about what he gets for calves, and they grow fast enough that he makes more money on the larger animals. He doesn't like to go over 22 - 23 months.
I know two other people who have bit bigger operations, 75 - 100 head, and they're under contract with the upscale organic butcher shop the next town over for 20-24 month steers, who take everything they'll produce - and they get a significant premium. Just add another year in the cycle. That shop sells grass fed steak at $10 a lb, other cuts for around $6/7, and you'd best be there by 3 pm or they're sold out.

Whole Foods in Denver sells the same grass-fed organic steak at $20/lb, the last time I looked and went running out the door screaming in fear.

It's an interesting dynamic. The big producers just aren't interested and it sure doesn't fit with their business model. Which around here, with a short growing season, is almost entirely feeder calf production - sell the calves in Oct, calving in Feb. But for the smaller guys who don't have Forest or BLM grazing rights, producing grass fed beef pays a lot more than just calves and it's worth their effort.

Re great tasting, old longhorn cow. I mentioned above that the best meat I've ever had was an old oxen, pasture fed for a few months before slaughter and custom aged. There's a guy down the road with long horns. Maybe I should go have a chat............

Are you sure you're getting the right cuts of meat for your desired cooking method?

I switched over to grass fed a year or two ago and I'm never going back. I don't understand why people say the fat is where the flavor comes from, because I find grass fed to be MUCH more flavorful (and fat actually doesn't have any flavor... ever seen pure beef tallow?). It also has all the other advantages already mentioned (healthier for you, the environment, the animals...).

SOME cuts of meat are good slow-cooked but others (yes, even when grass fed!) you can eat rare, and are actually much BETTER rare. Have you ever heard the saying about distance from hoof and horn? The longer the distance from hoof or horn, the more tender and the quicker you can cook it. So tenderloin, which comes right from the middle of the animal, is the most tender cut, while chuck and round, which come from near the front and back legs respectively, are the tougher and need low and slow cooking.

It's also possible I'm a little more tolerant of "toughness". I cooked a sirloin for Valentine's day and it was maybe a wee bit on the tougher side, but it was so delicious and flavorful that I didn't care. Grass fed meat actually tastes beefy, while corn-fed meat seems to have hardly any flavor at all. Maybe this real beef flavor is an aquired taste for some. I also like to eat tuna and sardines and blue cheese, so maybe I just like stronger flavors than the average person.

I don't cook grass fed meat in any particular "special" way compared to what's recommended for that cut of meat. Some cuts are low-and-slow cuts and some are some are ones you throw on the grill for a quick sear. This works regardless of whether the meat is grass fed or grain fed, it's just that grain fed is much tastier. It just takes some research to learn which is which. (Though, one clue is price... the tender cuts are always more expensive.)

This is a very interesting conversation. I am lurking on this topic, have bought several books about it too. Actually, the books were on the suggestion of someone here. Unfortunately, I could hardly make heads or tails out of either of the publications so that indicates to me that I'm not ready for a beef critter. All this other stuff with this thread has really, really, made me reconsider. What I want in my freezer is a few steaks that are flavorful, tender. I don't want to have to pound out a piece of meat in order to make it edible. I like having some ground beef for general use and some roasts, and know that there will be some cuts that are tough no matter the feed/butcher method. We won't be getting a critter this year as we hoped, half because I don't know enough about it and half because I'm not sure we have the time/effort. Lori

I grow grass fed beef because Dad had numerous heart problems and was diabetic, and so we kept the fat content as low as possible. After he died, I kept raising beef the same way and I've converted a couple of the local farmers. They tried it one year and were sold but again, they are small farms.

However, it is that fat, in part, that makes meat tender, so I butcher at 18 months, it's still baby beef. Nice and tender and never had a mouthful of grain in their lives, although the grandkids do feed them powdered sugar donuts occasionally as treats.

I continue to raise my cattle this way because it's healthier for the cattle too. They were not designed to eat grain, it simply makes them fat and it's hard on their digestive systems which are designed to eat grasses and forage.

As has been mentioned, grass fed beef is much higher in CLA and Omega 3 fatty acids and far lower in saturated fat.

In addition my cattle have no antibiotics, no growth hormones and they are strictly prohibited from having coffee with those donuts. (grin)

My beef is healthier for me, for my family and my customers, and it's a far healthier environment for the cattle too.

If it makes any difference, I have Herefords. They are docile, placid, friendly and easy to handle, just the right animals for a small woman to deal with. They are friendly enough that I can walk into the barnyard, pick up a newborn calf and walk into the barn with it and the mother will simply follow me. They aren't all that smart and they're too lazy to really push the fences so they seldom escape. I like 'em.

I do raise beef on a very small scale, right now I have five cattle and two horses, soon to be six cattle. The first calf of the season was born a week ago and I just have a couple of customers, sent to me by Dad's cardiologist.

Anyway, grass fed beef does not have to be tough, and if it is, the animal was too old or too stressed when butchered. Round tends to be lean anyway, so grass fed round is very lean, but I cook it rare and it's a little tougher than sirloin but not much. And I just had a nicely rare grass fed porterhouse last night, cut it with a butter knife....

There is a difference in flavor, though. Grass fed is, somehow, "beefier", it has a stronger flavor.

Annie

Annie, we snarfed down a 4 lb round roast yesterday, cooked rare, and as you say it wasn't that much tougher than sirloin. My son just made a couple of huge sandwiches with the left overs as he's off all day at a track meet.

How long does your butcher age the meat?

David, I'm sorry for the late reply, it's spring and calf #2 was just born, so now the "herd" is up to 6 cattle and 2 horses, LOL.

Carl usually hangs beef in the cooler about 7 days, if one looks old or unusually tough, he'll stretch it to 10 but he won't age it longer unless he's specifically asked. Dry aged beef is something that some people just don't appreciate, it also has a distinctive flavor, so he doesn't hang beef too long.

And, as I mentioned, I butcher young and so they don't need long aging to tenderize them.

A lean cut, though, is best rare or cooked for a very long time, low and slow. There isn't really middle ground there...

Annie

Thanks, Annie - I mentioned ours hangs for 20 -21 days - Only thing I've noticed is that bone left on a steak will ruin the flavor of the meat when cooking it, I guess that much aging and bone inners don't work that well. All in all,, it's good, tender meat.

I really don't know enough about the science and art of aging meat to comment.

I'm in the same camp as Annie. I like aged beef, but heavily aged beef is an acquired taste. When you're doing the butchering, you can usually tell when you'd better pull out the blades and saws. LOL.

There are a few dozen custom butcher shops around here, what with all the ranching and elk/deer hunting, and the choice of butcher is the subject of many a conversation. If you have lamb to butcher, then you drive to Monticello, UT, or the guy behind the gas station in Mancos. Pork? The guy in Dove Creek, or the one by the gun club. The quality of butchered Elk and venison depends far too much on how it was handled in the field, so thats pretty much wide open.

But beef? Then it gets very opinionated. The guy we use who ages the meat so long is booked 6 months in advance, very popular. I've never heard any one mention any 'heavily aged' taste, but everyone goes on and on about how tender it is. We used a different butcher for a few years and switched to this guy, and there's a world of difference.

I remember as a kid visiting relatives out in Nevada who ranch, and they'd slap some monstrous steak on my plate that was dry aged to the point it was fork-tender, and I remember that 'acquired' taste very well....

Like most goats, I have herbivorous tendencies, but my partner is omnivore (we support each others dietary choices). As a new year resolution he decided to eat only grass fed beef, when eating beef. When he went looking for some, he discovered that he could buy bison at half the price of grass fed beef. He grilled it 'rare' and was very happy with the outcome. So for those of you that have made that choice, and live in an urban/suburban environment (by this I mean if you are stuck getting your grass fed beef at Whole foods or Bristol farms), consider bison as an option, you might like it.

I grew up on grass fed beef, that was the only choice in the country where I lived. My memories of it are rather bleak, except for a dish called "ropa vieja". That was actually pretty good. You stew the meat for a very long time, shred it, and keep stewing it for a very long time. There are good things with it like onions, tomatoes, peppers, spices. Hey, if a quasi herbivore can have good memories of this dish, it must be pretty good, so trust me OK? If you find yourself with meat that will not tenderize, not matter what, try it! (google your favorite version and disregard the ones that assume you have corn fed beef - the cooking time should be long).

There is "grass fed" and there is "had to walk three feet between blades of grass" fed ... beef grazed in a lush pasture with water close by will be much more tender than those pastured on the typical Arizona range ... they do a lot of walking between water and grazing spots.

If they are going to be sold as "grass fed" and shipped out, they go right from the range to the trucks to the butchers. If it's going to be sold locally, they get a couple of months on irrigated pasture with a grain supplement to add some fat, local slaughter, and well-aged (a couple of weeks, typically, dry aged) ... the difference is amazing.

Cooking methods are definitely critical - cooking any steak well-done will make it dry and tough. Cooking stew meat too fast makes it tough and only after several more hours of cooking does it go past tough and into the falling-apart stage.

We dry age tough cuts of beef at home. Wrap in 3-4 layers of cheesecloth, place on a wire rack on a sheet pan, place in refer at 36 deg for 1-2 weeks. Replace cheesecloth and rotate beef every couple of days. The beef gets very tender, the flavor gets enhanced from moisture loss and enzymes breaking down the meat. That is the same method high-end restaurants use to sell you a $50 steak. Works for me. Some restaurants dry age their primal cuts of beef for 6 weeks.

I found this information on cooking grass fed beef and thought I would share it.

http://stores.dfwgrassfedbeef.com/-strse-template/about/Page.bok