The Great Steak Taste Test of 2010: The Difference Between Prime, Choice, and Select

I should never go to a grocery store with my wife. She hates the whole experience of the grocery store, I love it, she would prefer to get a months worth of groceries at one time, I would prefer to go every time I cook dinner.

I was going to grill steaks for dinner and was pleasantly surprised when I saw Ribeyes with the USDA Shield on them, they were beautiful. I am not a steak snob, but after several years of selling only USDA Prime 28 Day aged beef at Copeland’s in Atlanta I jumped at the opportunity to prepare one for my bride of 17 years (and myself of course!!)

As I studied the steaks to get the best marbled, most textured piece of Prime Ribeye available, Amanda started to look at the prices and was taken aback by the fact that I was going to pay over $2.00 per lb more for the Prime than the beleaguered choice steak in the next row over.

After a few minutes of back and forth about me being taken in by the marketing folks in the meat industry we decided to do a taste test between the USDA Prime, a Choice steak and a select steak.

As I prepared my grill for the great taste test of 2010 I was surprised by the difference in the look of the 3 steaks. The Prime Steak had beautiful marbling throughout the entire steak, the Choice Steak had some marbling but was fairly devoid of fat marbling in the center. The Select Steak had a lip of fat on the outside but was solid red and had no marbling at all near the center of the steak.

I had never tasted different cuts of meat side by side and was amazed at how much better the Prime Steaks were than the other two. It was much more tender and had a juicy almost butter like taste that was delicious. The choice steak was good but paled in comparison to it’s Prime Cousin. The Select steak, despite the nice gold label by the grocery store was not very good. I think it would be fine if you were cooking it in a gravy or as a stew, but was not tender or juicy grilled on its own merits.

At Copeland’s we get our all of our Prime Steaks from the Premier Butcher of Prime Steaks in the Eastern part of the Untied States, Buckhead Beef Company. I love to go over to their plant in North East Atlanta and take a look at the Copeland’s room- Where our prime steaks are aged for 28 days before they are shipped to each of the Copeland’s stores for you to enjoy.

It is a pretty meticulous process that the USDA goes through to grade beef. Only 2% of all of the beef in the United States is deemed to be USDA Prime, the rest goes into one of 4 other categories Choice, Select , Cutter and Canner. The latter two are used in frozen dinners or other processed food products.

If you have never had a Prime Steak or if you have had a Prime Steak and want to experience the best 2% of steaks in the country cooked in an 1800F broiler at the best price in town, I would invite you to come out to our new Prime Steak and Premium Wine Night every Wednesday at Copeland’s in Atlanta.

We will be selling all of our steaks for $19.99 and our premium wines will be half price by the bottle. My wife has never had a steak at Copeland’s, she loves the Hickory Grilled Fish and Salads to much, but now she is a believer in the quality of the “USDA Shield”