Steak Basics

Steak: A brief overview

Many factors influence a steak's quality and texture, including cattle breed, feed, grade, age and cut. Beef carcasses are graded on the basis of marbling, or the amount of fat running through the meat. The more fat, the higher the grade. Although there are eight government grades for beef, most mail-order steak falls into the top two, prime and choice. The best mail-order steak purveyors make it easy to tell what category their beef falls into. Reviews say that if you can't afford a top prime cut like rib-eye or strip steak, you should look for a lesser prime cut, such as flank steak. The steak will be of better quality than even a more desirable cut of lower-grade beef, such as select filet mignon.

The vast majority of beef is wet-aged, but critics knock the practice for doing little to boost flavor. In wet-aging, beef is vacuum-sealed in plastic and stored for an average of 23 days. Although this process tenderizes the meat, it doesn't allow moisture to evaporate or concentrate flavor. Experts prefer dry-aged meat, which has been hung in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment for several weeks. As you might expect, dry-aged beef is more expensive because it shrinks from water loss and develops a crust that has to be trimmed off, which means less meat from the same size steer. Reviewers knock purveyors like Omaha Steaks for wet-aging their beef and being coy about whether a given shipment will contain prime or choice meat.