Beef quality is uneven, more than pork or chicken but there’s some tips that you can easily check the condition right at supermarket. Check points are traceability, the hardness and the visual.
Check traceability
In general wagyu case female cow has better taste than male one. Gender is of course not printed so we have to check it. All wagyu distributed in Japan has own identification number and all resellers have to specify it clearly on the labels by law. And, we can track traceability way easy via a government website.
Identification number
At first check an identification number shown at a label of a package. It’s usually written in the center of notation and in small letters. IDs have 10 digits numbers.
Wagyu tracking service at gov website
Go to the government website and accept terms and conditions. No need any registration and everyone can use free. Just inputting Wagyu ID and now you can see all tracking information from its birth and processing. Here as I said gender column is most most important.
In the webpage you can also check rearing period and origin place. Thanks to this system now there’s no more origin fraudulent in Japan but the existence of this website and identification numbers are rarely recognized by even common Japanese.
Hardness: Harder is better
This is a only case of wagyu beef but unexpectedly meat quality is better when raw beef is harder. Just push weakly on the surface of beef and make sure the hardness. Hard raw beef gets very tender and juicy once it’s grilled.
Pink and gloss
Female beef has pinker than male one. And good wagyu beef has low melting point. That’s why high quality beef has tend to be pink and gloss on its surface. On the other hand, blackness caused by oxidation is acceptable.
People usually look only marbled condition but actually it is not really connected with its quality, usually.
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