Where to get beef from dairy cows

Uncle_moe

Anyone know of anywhere in Ireland that you can get beef from old dairy cows? Becoming a huge thing in London, NY etc to serve beef from dairy cows that have lived up to 20 years. Apparently the flavour is amazing so wouldn't mind trying it.
Makes sense that it should taste good considering how nice aged beef is.

The Hill Billy

Moving to Farming & Forestry from Food & Drink as the farmers may be better able to advise you on this.

tHB

patsy_mccabe

It's the French way, you know. They go crazy for older suckler cows too.

Dawggone

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

It's the French way, you know. They go crazy for older suckler cows too.

The French reckon that a 9yr old holstein cow is the ultimate in beef.
I'll take a 14 month angus or hereford heifer any day.

Grueller

Would need to be slow cooked anyhow or you would need good back teeth.

Try tesco, they seem to have stocked all types of beef at one stage or another, even from horses.

Timmaay

Got a 15yr HO here due to be culled anyday, I'll let her on for the bargain price of 900euros ha!

blue5000

Uncle_moe wrote: »

Anyone know of anywhere in Ireland that you can get beef from old dairy cows? Becoming a huge thing in London, NY etc to serve beef from dairy cows that have lived up to 20 years. Apparently the flavour is amazing so wouldn't mind trying it.
Makes sense that it should taste good considering how nice aged beef is.

Maybe try some of the butchers on Moore street.

pedigree 6

There was a taste test competition done there a few years ago in slaney meats and they had a range of different breeds killed and cooked by a chef in whites hotel. I'm not sure what breed won the bullock competition but the winner of the heifer class was a Holstein x limousin. Apparently the Holstein introduces a lot of marbling into the meat and thus gives best taste. I'm not sure which butchers would have pure Holstein meat but if this could develop into a premium market it would be fantastic. Maybe there's a butchers thread somewhere, although I don't think any of the mainstream butchers would have older Holstein meat for sale. Maybe some of the smaller butchers might have some but you would have to talk to butcher before hand and even then you would have to know butcher fairly well to trust him fairly well.

cute geoge

Has any one here butchered and tasted a fatted holstein old cow ?

Buford T. Justice XIX

Uncle_moe wrote: »

Anyone know of anywhere in Ireland that you can get beef from old dairy cows? Becoming a huge thing in London, NY etc to serve beef from dairy cows that have lived up to 20 years. Apparently the flavour is amazing so wouldn't mind trying it.
Makes sense that it should taste good considering how nice aged beef is.

A lot of the flavour and texture in meat is due to the ageing process used by the butcher. Safe to say, a large percentage of meat on sale in supermarkets would only have minimal ageing in vacuum packs before being opened, cut up and sold.

Try your local butcher, or better yet, try one that kills their own animals.

There was a thread lately in the food forum about dry ageing of meat that explains the 'proper' way to cure meat. It was post/thread of the day a week or two ago.

hurling_lad

Timmaay wrote: »

Got a 15yr HO here due to be culled anyday, I'll let her on for the bargain price of 900euros ha!

I have a 13yo dried off with a shagged hip who looks like she won't walk up the chute at the factory so any hipster who wants her can take her away.

Mad4simmental

Is this the new rage with hipsters? I thought ye were all vegan? The French also eat snails and frogs so.....ya.....

Hard to beat a youg heifer for the freezer. We done a few over the years and by far the nicest beef was from a young lim heifer, but I'd be more of a lean meet eater.

longgonesilver

Hi there are some very rough comments here lads, we might have guests, customers even reading this.

The joking is coming from the fact that an old Holstein cow would be what an irish farmer would consider to be the worst beef produced on a farm. The older an animal the tougher the meat is the usual take on this. These animals usually go for slaughter once there useful life on a dairy farm is over and return probably the worst price to the farmer of any beef. Most enter the burger trade.

There is nothing wrong with the meat and if aged properly could be extremely tasty.

patsy_mccabe

Or is a steak from a young Holstein bull going to taste any worst than one from an E-Grade Belgian Blue.

pedigree 6

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Or is a steak from a young Holstein bull going to taste any worst than one from an E-Grade Belgian Blue.

We're going to have to organise a blind taste test here. Though seriously there must be competitions held in france, usa, etc or does anyone know of competitions held here where all the breeds were represented and then different ages, sexes.

orm0nd

pedigree 6 wrote: »

There was a taste test competition done there a few years ago in slaney meats and they had a range of different breeds killed and cooked by a chef in whites hotel. I'm not sure what breed won the bullock competition but the winner of the heifer class was a Holstein x limousin. Apparently the Holstein introduces a lot of marbling into the meat and thus gives best taste. I'm not sure which butchers would have pure Holstein meat but if this could develop into a premium market it would be fantastic. Maybe there's a butchers thread somewhere, although I don't think any of the mainstream butchers would have older Holstein meat for sale. Maybe some of the smaller butchers might have some but you would have to talk to butcher before hand and even then you would have to know butcher fairly well to trust him fairly well.

we killed for the freezer, a 15 month BR Fr heifer who got injured,

on a curtailed red meat diet myself for health reasons, but it's by the far nicest beef I have tasted in a long time

frazzledhome

Dawggone wrote: »

The French reckon that a 9yr old holstein cow is the ultimate in beef.
I'll take a 14 month angus or hereford heifer any day.

A red Hereford heifer, melt in your mouth yum yum

Deepsouthwest

The irony of people now actively pursuing "aged beef", while we pay over age penalties for cattle in the factories!

freedominacup

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

The irony of people now actively pursuing "aged beef", while we pay over age penalties for cattle in the factories!

Around the time the wheels were coming off the wagon on the whole age thing with bull beef eighteen months or two years ago AA Gill had an article in the Sunday times about the blandness and sameness of most European beef nowadays. How Irish and British farmers had headed down the same track as continental farmers against our strengths. In general they don't have pasture available and killing animals at a young age makes sense where most of their feed is being brought to them.

Our strength was always older steers with real taste to the meat. If he had his way it would be traditional breed steers slowly grown and killed somewhere between three and four years. Go figure.

pedigree 6

Here's something I read may interest people.http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/dairy/yield-and-quality-of-holstein-beef.pdf

pedigree 6

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Here's something I read may interest people.http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/dairy/yield-and-quality-of-holstein-beef.pdf

Aw crap tried link and can't get it. It's a paper about Holstein beef. Type in Holstein beef in search engine and it's first paper on quality of Holstein beef.

Deepsouthwest

freedominacup wrote: »

Around the time the wheels were coming off the wagon on the whole age thing with bull beef eighteen months or two years ago AA Gill had an article in the Sunday times about the blandness and sameness of most European beef nowadays. How Irish and British farmers had headed down the same track as continental farmers against our strengths. In general they don't have pasture available and killing animals at a young age makes sense where most of their feed is being brought to them.

Our strength was always older steers with real taste to the meat. If he had his way it would be traditional breed steers slowly grown and killed somewhere between three and four years. Go figure.

Some of the narrowest, lankiest holstein bullocks made massive cattle once they were given enough time to fill out.

Bullocks

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Some of the narrowest, lankiest holstein bullocks made massive cattle once they were given enough time to fill out.

Yup , time growing and time hanging after they're killed are the main parts of getting flavour into the meat I reckon .
The father used to have fair lumps of fr bullocks going to the factory back in the day but they would be easily in their 4th year maybe even the 5th year if he didn't need money and there was plenty of grass

Markcheese

freedominacup wrote: »

Around the time the wheels were coming off the wagon on the whole age thing with bull beef eighteen months or two years ago AA Gill had an article in the Sunday times about the blandness and sameness of most European beef nowadays. How Irish and British farmers had headed down the same track as continental farmers against our strengths. In general they don't have pasture available and killing animals at a young age makes sense where most of their feed is being brought to them.

Our strength was always older steers with real taste to the meat. If he had his way it would be traditional breed steers slowly grown and killed somewhere between three and four years. Go figure.

Heard that guy talking and can see the logic in it. Whatever the animal would have to be finished properly- even the prime cuts on a big old cow, well finished,well butchered and hung should have a load of flavour .
But I can't see the economics of keeping a bullock for years on end - especially when good Hereford or angus will finish cheaply on good grass quickly-

freedominacup

Markcheese wrote: »

Heard that guy talking and can see the logic in it. Whatever the animal would have to be finished properly- even the prime cuts on a big old cow, well finished,well butchered and hung should have a load of flavour .
But I can't see the economics of keeping a bullock for years on end - especially when good Hereford or angus will finish cheaply on good grass quickly-

He's a food critic not a teagasc advisor, economics don't come into it for him. Do they really for teagasc either or are we back to kowtows argument on what we're doing wrong in dairy? Churning out virtually limitless quantities of bargain basement commodity product instead of aiming for higher value niches.

kowtow

Gill is a great writer. Induces regular panic attacks among even the most egotistical Michelin chefs in London.

Interesting idea, old dairy beef. If we had that and a local veal industry we'd be laughing.

Nekarsulm

As I understood it, in France old culls were favoured for fattening up for beef, because the actual meat was "young" and newly grown. The age of the frame of the cow was not so important.


And taking of narrow lanky bullocks, I have the misfortune of having a Norwegian Red X Jersey in the field. He will be going in the freezer cause I would be embarrassed to see him in a ring with my name on the board! Boardsie BBQ some ttime in the future?

Deepsouthwest

kowtow wrote: »

Gill is a great writer. Induces regular panic attacks among even the most egotistical Michelin chefs in London.

Interesting idea, old dairy beef. If we had that and a local veal industry we'd be laughing.

Think I've posted this before in another thread, but I've a friend who's a top chef in a Michelin star restaurant in Ireland, when chatting last yr about our jobs etc he asked where my bull calves go, I said mostly to the veal market in Holland, he found this amusing cos in his restaurant they're paying extortionate amounts of money to import probably the same veal from Holland!

pedigree 6

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Think I've posted this before in another thread, but I've a friend who's a top chef in a Michelin star restaurant in Ireland, when chatting last yr about our jobs etc he asked where my bull calves go, I said mostly to the veal market in Holland, he found this amusing cos in his restaurant they're paying extortionate amounts of money to import probably the same veal from Holland!

Wasn't there a piece on ETTG last year about a farm in Kilkenny producing veal from Holstein Friesian bull calves. They were approved by some of the animal welfare groups as well. I think they were supplying restaurants in Dublin.

Greengrass1

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Wasn't there a piece on ETTG last year about a farm in Kilkenny producing veal from Holstein Friesian bull calves. They were approved by some of the animal welfare groups as well. I think they were supplying restaurants in Dublin.

Slaney meats do the veal. Calves hete are reared to 10 mths as bulls and sent there by man who buys them. Maize and straw is extent if diet. Can't feed silage as it taints meat

ganmo

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Wasn't there a piece on ETTG last year about a farm in Kilkenny producing veal from Holstein Friesian bull calves. They were approved by some of the animal welfare groups as well. I think they were supplying restaurants in Dublin.

They were supplying Rosè veal which I think is 3 months older than veal

pedigree 6

ganmo wrote: »

They were supplying Rosè veal which I think is 3 months older than veal

Ah right! I presume one is white meat and rose veal is pink meat. Anyway it's welcome that they're being reared and killed in this country. Even better that animal rights groups approve of it.

Markcheese

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Slaney meats do the veal. Calves hete are reared to 10 mths as bulls and sent there by man who buys them. Maize and straw is extent if diet. Can't feed silage as it taints meat

Not so much taints ( I think ) but it's the colour -a lot of continentals expect their beef pink and they're veal almost white - grass'll make it red -( dunno if it iron or what)
Pity all dairy calves aren't reared to veal (ethically ?) and slaughtered here -

Dawggone

ganmo wrote: »

They were supplying Rosè veal which I think is 3 months older than veal

White veal calves are fed exclusively on milk. Rosé veal eat concentrates and fibre along with milk. Veal here costs around €12/kg.

Dawggone

pedigree 6 wrote: »

Even better that animal rights groups approve of it.

I enjoy groups that blag on about animal 'rights', when humans don't have rights in many countries across the globe. It

pedigree 6

Dawggone wrote: »

I enjoy groups that blag on about animal 'rights', when humans don't have rights in many countries across the globe. It

"Four legs good, two legs bad.":D

kowtow

And now dragons den have the killer line to put the laboratory grown milk out of it's misery.

"That's all very well and it tastes ok, but what would we do for veal?"

Dawggone

kowtow wrote: »

And now dragons den have the killer line to put the laboratory grown milk out of it's misery.

"That's all very well and it tastes ok, but what would we do for veal?"

Lol.

Import wet nurses from countries with no or little human rights.

Markcheese

Dawggone wrote: »

I enjoy groups that blag on about animal 'rights', when humans don't have rights in many countries across the globe. It

Although you could argue that where animal rights are worst- pig and poultry"industries" (and beef in the states) -farmers also have feck all rights as they are pretty much slaves to the feed supplier/processer .