Bull Beef Eating Quality Debate Resolved
20/05/05

English beef producers can take advantage of the greater efficiency of bulls to improve their competitiveness while helping to displace imports, safe in the knowledge that increased bull beef production need not compromise the eating quality of home-produced meat.

This is the key finding of the latest University of Bristol research study for the English Beef and Lamb Executive (EBLEX), which confirms how best to fine-tune both production and processing regimes to achieve the best combination of tenderness and taste.

The study, undertaken in support of the EBLEX Quality Standard Mark (QSM) for beef, involved a total of 60 suckler and dairy-bred bulls slaughtered at various age points between 15 and 19 months of age, boned-out and cold-conditioned for nine, 21 or 35 days.

Sirloin steaks from the animals were then evaluated by a trained taste panel alongside steaks from 20-24 month steers processed in exactly the same way. Average carcase weights and fatness classification were similar for each group of animals.

This research highlighted the importance of finishing bulls at younger ages rather than keeping them on to nearer 19 months, as well as doing everything possible to minimise stress prior to slaughter to avoid the dark-cutting beef that can so easily result from less-than-ideal handling or transport conditions. These results endorse the age cut-off of 16 months specified for bulls from the dairy herd in the EBLEX QSM for beef.

Extending the conditioning time of the beef improved tenderness noticeably in all animals; the most marked improvements being between nine and 21 days conditioning. Indeed, after conditioning for 21 days the tenderness of the beef from younger bulls proved similar to that of the 9-day conditioned steers.

Taking juiciness, beef flavour and abnormal flavour as well as tenderness into account in an 'Overall Liking' score, the taste panel established that extending the conditioning time of younger bulls to 21-days was sufficient to ensure their meat was as acceptable to consumers as that of steers.

These results dovetail well with an earlier study on beef-flavour conducted for EBLEX, HCC and QMS by the University. This underlined the need to carefully match post-slaughter ageing/conditioning and retail packaging to the beef production system to ensure the most appealing flavour in home-produced beef.

A wide range of EBLEX activity on meat quality can be found by asking George England for 'bull beef' or 'beef flavour' on the EBLEX website (www.exblex.org.uk).