Tenderness of beef as affected by the age of animal

Abstract

Samples from longissimus dorsi and rectus femoris muscles from three old Holstein cows and three young Hereford steers were heated at a rate of 0.1 C/min from 30 to 60 C, and held for 4hr at the latter temperature to obtain total heating time of 10 hr. The young Hereford steer muscles were more tender, and showed better water-holding capacity throughout the experiments than the same muscles from the old Holstein cows. The same differences were also seen in samples heated to 80 C at a rate of 0.8 C/min, and held for 1 hr.