- 13 hours ago
Butcher Jake Dickson (Dickson’s Farmstand Meats) gives us his ultimate ribeye steak buying guide. From understanding the steak grading system (select, choice and prime) and debunking what labels actually mean, to answering whether to go for a boneless cut vs bone-in or if a thicker steak tastes better. Jake goes through taste tests and cooking results, red flags to watch out for and green flags to look out for, this guide will change how you shop for ribeye steak forever.
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00:00Steak is expensive these days.
00:01I'm here to help you pick out the best
00:03and get the most for your money.
00:04I'm Jake Dixon, owner and operator
00:06of Dixon's Farmstead Meats in New York City.
00:08This is my ultimate ribeye buying guide.
00:14There's a lot of different steaks you can choose,
00:15but I love the ribeye because it's the best combination
00:18of richness, beefy flavor, and tenderness.
00:21That's really good.
00:22The grading system is provided by the USDA,
00:26your tax dollars at work,
00:27to determine quality of beef
00:29going through mostly large slaughterhouses.
00:31Those slaughterhouses are paying extra
00:33for the grading service.
00:34That way they can charge a premium
00:35for meat that grades at a higher level.
00:38Mostly what you'll see at the supermarket
00:39are the three primary grades of select, choice, and prime.
00:43If you see it unlabeled or ungraded, it's usually select.
00:47Still not terrible looking beef,
00:49but it's not very much marbling.
00:51There are other things like color and shape
00:53that go into the grading, but 90% of that grade
00:56really comes down to marbling or intermuscular fat.
00:59The reason we're looking for marbling when selecting steaks
01:02is that fat will melt into the meat
01:05and make it more tender and juicy when you eat it.
01:07We experience juiciness not as water content,
01:10but really the ratio of fat to water.
01:13So more fat, less water is going to make it seem really juicier
01:17when you eat it.
01:17So in this case, the select steak,
01:19very little intermuscular fat.
01:21It might have a big beefy flavor,
01:23but it's not going to be very juicy.
01:24The next grade you'll find in the supermarket is choice.
01:27So choice is going to have nicer color
01:29and significantly more marbling.
01:32And then moving on to our prime.
01:33So as you can see on this package,
01:35it claims prime is only the top 3% of beef in our country.
01:39And you can see significantly more marbling.
01:41There's the fat on the outside,
01:43which will protect it during cooking,
01:44but the grade really comes down
01:45to this intermuscular fat in the eye.
01:48We're going to do a little taste test
01:49and see if I can tell the difference.
01:55All right, let's taste our first steak.
01:59It's pretty tender.
02:00It's got pretty good flavor.
02:02It's hard to tell without tasting all of them,
02:04but I'd say it's either going to be choice or prime.
02:08Is that steak number two?
02:09Yep.
02:10A little bit better texture.
02:11I would say a little bit better flavor as well.
02:14I'm going for steak number three,
02:16and then I'm going to make my guesses.
02:18By far the worst one.
02:19Tougher, not as juicy.
02:21Definitely select.
02:22The other two were pretty great eating experiences.
02:25That one I would say not interested in.
02:28All right, let's see how I did.
02:29So I got the select right.
02:31That one was significantly worse than the other two.
02:33Very, very obvious.
02:34These two, I switched.
02:37I thought this one was choice and this one was prime.
02:40Looking at them, like they're pretty close.
02:42My takeaway here is that both choice and prime are good steaks to buy.
02:47And I would avoid select or ungraded meat.
02:51There are a lot of claims on steak labels.
02:53Here's what they actually mean.
02:54So in this one, you're seeing all natural and nothing else.
02:58In our country, all natural just means minimally processed.
03:01So it doesn't say anything about hormones, antibiotics.
03:04That means typically that they were used in the raising of that animal.
03:08You really don't want antibiotics in your meat.
03:10It helps promote the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria and not great for everybody.
03:14So this one's making a claim of no hormones or antibiotics during the animal's life.
03:19People are really concerned with growth promoters.
03:21It's banned in most countries around the world.
03:23So it makes sense to avoid if you can.
03:25This one here is making a pasture raise claim.
03:28That should mean that the animal spent time outdoors, room to roam.
03:32This also has a third party humane certification.
03:34Something I would always look for when buying meat.
03:36That means they've had a third party come in and verify the claims that the animal is living
03:41a good life in good conditions.
03:43This last package is certified USDA organic.
03:46That means not only did it receive no hormones or growth promoters during its life,
03:50but also all of its feed was certified organic.
03:53But it doesn't mean that it was grass-fed.
03:55It doesn't mean it was raised on pasture either.
03:57Generally, the more claims you're seeing on the package, the better the product will be.
04:01Let's talk about a big and growing category, grass-fed beef.
04:05It means that the animal was never fed grain during any of its life cycle.
04:08But it doesn't necessarily mean that it was raised on a pasture or on a hillside.
04:12It could be fed in a feedlot where grass was brought to it.
04:15So it could be bales of hay or baleage.
04:18There's some amazing grass-fed beef raised on small family farms.
04:21But most grass-fed beef is coming from Australia, Uruguay, and other faraway places on huge farms.
04:27It's hard to make general claims about the flavor.
04:30Grass-fed beef is going to be much more variable.
04:33What kind of grass is fed, how much of it, seasonality.
04:36But that being said, typically pretty beefy flavors and not as buttery as you'll find on grain-finished beef.
04:42Typically, grass-fed beef will be leaner.
04:44Some people believe it's better for the environment, better for the animal,
04:47better from a health perspective for the consumer as well.
04:50Now we're going to talk about where it comes from on the rib and why that matters.
04:55So first off, what is a ribeye?
04:57A ribeye is the large muscle group that runs down the back where it corresponds to the rib cage.
05:02So essentially from here to here on the animal.
05:05This is what it comes from and this is what it looks like in the store or should look like.
05:10It's really important you know what proper butchery is
05:12because if any of this extra stuff that should be trimmed off is left,
05:16you're essentially overpaying.
05:17Here I have a whole seven-bone rib roast.
05:20Sometimes people call it prime rib.
05:21This is the entire section of the ribeye.
05:23In this case, prepared as a roast like you'd find for Christmas.
05:27If we cut this into steaks, you've got an entire rack of ribeyes.
05:30From one end of this roast to the other, the steaks are going to be wildly different.
05:34So from this end, it's essentially where the ribeye meets the New York strip.
05:38It's essentially a New York strip.
05:39You can see it's just one solid muscle.
05:42That's the longissimus.
05:43Whereas if we go to the other end, this is where the ribeye meets the chuck or the shoulder.
05:48You're going to see all different muscles.
05:50So the longissimus is now smaller.
05:51We have the complexus is getting bigger.
05:54And we have a bigger cap muscle as well, which is the spinalis.
05:57So from one end, we're essentially getting a New York strip.
06:00And the other end, we're turning into a chuck steak and everything in between.
06:03I'm going to start on the chuck end where it meets the shoulder.
06:08That's our chuck end.
06:09I have the far extreme of one end of the spectrum.
06:12And as we keep going, it's going to be a progression.
06:15Each steak will change a little bit.
06:16And you'll see the range from one end to the other.
06:19On this side here, we have where it meets the New York strip.
06:21This is essentially a New York strip.
06:23It's one solid muscle, the longissimus.
06:26Really tender, great, big eye muscle.
06:28As we go down, you'll see the longissimus or eye muscle is shrinking.
06:32And we're getting additional muscles coming into the picture.
06:34So we've got the spinalis or cap muscle here.
06:37And as we go down, it's getting bigger and bigger.
06:39And you'll see there's a small side muscle here, the complexus, that starts to get bigger and figures in
06:45more as we get down to the chuck end.
06:47Even though they're all ribeye and they're all from the same animal,
06:50this one is going to eat differently than this one.
06:53So on the strip end, it's going to be a little bit leaner.
06:57We're not going to have as much fat and different muscle groups.
06:59If you like your steak more rare, medium rare, this is a great steak for you
07:03because it's going to cook the same all the way through.
07:06And the fat is going to render really evenly.
07:08As we head this way, you'll see that the cap muscle or spinalis is figuring into it.
07:13We still have a really big eye, but we're also getting some of that really tender,
07:17delicious spinalis in there as well.
07:19It's really a progression.
07:20So we keep going down.
07:21We're getting a little bit less of one, more of the other.
07:24And as we start getting to the last two steaks, you're getting quite a small eye,
07:28a really big cap muscle here.
07:29So if that's your favorite cut, I would choose that.
07:31But there's other things happening here that maybe will influence if you like this steak or not.
07:37So if on one side it works really well as rare or medium rare,
07:40this one you can say we've got some big chunks of fat in there that might not render out
07:45if you serve this rare to your guests.
07:47Sometimes we call that star fat is not going to soften or render
07:50and it's going to be a very unpleasant eating experience,
07:53even though this is a spectacular steak.
07:55I love my steaks medium rare, but if I brought this one home,
07:58I'd cook it to medium or even a little bit farther.
08:00I might slow my cooking time down and cook it almost like a roast instead of a steak.
08:05So just to recap a little bit, if you like your steak more rare, medium rare,
08:09I like the loin end or New York strip end.
08:11If you want to cook it a little bit more, but want a richer flavor, maybe more fat,
08:15I would go for the chuck end over here.
08:18Now we're going to cook one of these up.
08:19I'm going to pick this one here because it's going to show us a real distinction
08:22between the cap or spinalis and the eye of the steak.
08:26In this case, we've got a bone in cowboy steak, which means a one bone rib eye.
08:31So nice thick cut.
08:32We cut between the bones.
08:33An extreme version of this would be the tomahawk steak,
08:36which essentially just the same steak with more bone.
08:39For me, I would never buy a tomahawk steak.
08:42Super inconvenient to cook.
08:44You need a really big pan for a small amount of meat.
08:46That being said, some people just love that presentation.
08:49We're just going to turn it into a thick cut boneless steak really easily.
08:53I'm just running the knife right along the bone to remove it from the meat,
08:57leaving as little meat as possible on the bone.
09:00A lot of people are asking us at our store, should I go boneless or bone in?
09:03I don't have a strong preference either way.
09:06The big difference I find is that your window for perfect cooking
09:09is going to be a little bit smaller when you're cooking a boneless cut versus a bone in.
09:13The bone acts as a heat sink, so it's going to slow the cooking down.
09:17So instead of that perfect medium rare hitting in a small two minute window,
09:21maybe you get five minutes.
09:22So if you're really particular about your doneness, maybe go bone in.
09:26The one thing about them when you cook them is that
09:28it changes how it's going to cook in terms of where your center of doneness is.
09:32In a bone in cut, the rarest part is going to be right along the bone there.
09:36Whereas when we cook it boneless, the rarest part during cooking is going to be in the middle.
09:40Let's cook up this ribeye and see how all the different parts taste.
09:43I like to season my steak pretty heavily.
09:46You're going to lose a lot of salt in the pan, so I go heavier than you think you need.
09:50Also, the salt in here is going to be seasoning the entire cut, not just the surface area.
09:54If you want, for the cut this big, I'd even season a day or two days in advance,
09:58because the salt will penetrate further into the steak.
10:01I'm going to use a little bit of oil, but not too much.
10:04This steak's going to start to render fat.
10:06So it's just kind of the start of the process.
10:08When we're cooking two, two and a half inch steak, you've got to be pretty patient.
10:12We're not trying to get there super fast.
10:14I'm going to cook it probably three minutes on this side, flip it.
10:18Everything is starting to like render out and the ribeye is frying in its own fat.
10:22And then we'll actually keep flipping it every few minutes to slowly build up a crust and get a nice,
10:27even cooking on it.
10:29I always use a meat thermometer because it takes all the guesswork out.
10:33When I'm trying to cook to medium rare, I'm usually I'm aiming for pulling it at 110
10:38and then letting it rest.
10:39I want it to hit about 130 in the end.
10:42The bigger piece of meat, the longer I'm going to let it rest.
10:45The heat's going to migrate in and continue to cook the steak as it sits here.
10:48All right, our steak has been rested.
10:50Let's give it a taste.
10:51You can clearly see the three components of this ribeye.
10:54So we've got the cap muscle, the center muscle and the tail.
10:57Each of these are totally different, so I'm going to cut them up differently.
11:00First, I'm going to remove the tail.
11:02This is mostly fat, super decadent.
11:05Now I'm going to separate the center muscle from the cap muscle.
11:09Now you can see there's a nice guide here, a huge ribbon of fat.
11:12I'll probably trim some of that off afterwards.
11:15You can kind of see if I reassemble.
11:17This is our ribeye.
11:18The nice triangle of the tail.
11:19Half the time when I'm cutting this for a party, I don't even let this come to the table.
11:23Just because it is literally 90% fat.
11:27This one's about 50-50.
11:29But as we get actually farther back, it's like almost completely fat.
11:33Really delicious.
11:34I kind of think of it like this is what I eat in the kitchen before the food hits the
11:37table.
11:38That's really good.
11:40The next piece I'm going to cut is the longissimus.
11:42This is the center muscle of the ribeye.
11:44When we're at the New York strip side of it, it's basically the entire ribeye steak.
11:48But as this is more towards the chuck end, it makes up about half of the ribeye steak.
11:53I will say I nailed it.
11:55This is kind of like a perfect medium rare.
11:58This was a super well-marbled ribeye.
12:00So as you can see, all this fat is kind of melted into the meat.
12:03There's not big chunks in there.
12:05It's different from this piece here, which is kind of like big chunks of fat that aren't going to go
12:09away.
12:09So even though this looks leaner, it's going to eat really rich because the meat has absorbed all that fat
12:14during the cooking process.
12:15The exceptional marbling, the richness of it.
12:18This is why people really love ribeye.
12:21Super tender, nice and rich, big beefy flavor.
12:25Truly an exceptional cut.
12:27Finally, we're going to cut up the cap muscle.
12:29So you can see it has a totally different grain than the heart muscle or the center muscle.
12:33Really loose, really marbled.
12:35I'm going to take off some of this fat here because that's excessive.
12:38And this one, because it kind of falls apart a bit, I find even like cutting with the grain doesn't
12:44even matter.
12:44It's going to be so tender and so flavorful.
12:46But you'll see it's totally different cooking as the same steak here.
12:51Because its grain is different, because it's farther towards the edge of the meat, it's almost like medium well.
12:56But so much juiciness and so much fat in that cut that it doesn't matter.
13:00It's still going to be incredible.
13:03Flavors over the top, super buttery, big beefy flavor.
13:07Awesome texture.
13:09There's a reason that people seek this cut out.
13:12So three different sections.
13:13Got that cap muscle.
13:14Really, really decadent.
13:16Then that perfectly cooked middle section.
13:18And then the ultra decadent tail, which is mostly fat.
13:21Half the time doesn't even make it to the table.
13:23This is why the chuck and ribeye is so appealing because you've got so many different varieties.
13:28So when you pick out a ribeye steak, if you want more of this middle experience here,
13:32make sure you're picking out one that's closer to the New York strip.
13:35If you want more cap muscle, pick one closer to the chuck.
13:39When you go to the supermarket, you might see all different thicknesses of ribeyes in the meat counter.
13:43All of them are great, but I use different ones for different purposes.
13:47These thin cut ones I'm going to fry up in a pan really quickly for tacos, steak and eggs,
13:52Korean barbecue.
13:53It's going to be more about the surface texture and less about the doneness in the middle.
13:57If I'm grilling or want something a perfect medium rare in the middle,
14:00but still getting a nice sear on the outside, I'll go with something inch and a quarter,
14:04inch and a half.
14:05And if I'm entertaining, I often go for that big wow factor.
14:08I'll go with the Cote de Bouffe or cowboy steak, two inches, three inches.
14:11I'll do a reverse sear method and I'll finish right when my guests arrive.
14:15All right, let's talk about cattle breed.
14:17The most common breed you'll see named in our country is Angus.
14:21It's been a little bit watered down over the years, but the main idea to be labeled as
14:26Angus or certified Angus has to meet certain quality and characteristics of the breed.
14:31Anytime that people are putting more effort into raising higher quality and labeling as such,
14:36it's probably good for you as a consumer.
14:38It might make you a little bit more comfortable about the quality of the product you're buying.
14:42On the other end of the spectrum, we've got the American Wagyu.
14:45Japanese Wagyu is a specific breed raised in a specific way and region
14:50that gives incredible over the top marbling.
14:52American Wagyu is typically crossbred, so probably 50-50 or some percentage of Wagyu and Angus cattle.
14:59And it can mean a lot.
15:00It can have great quality marbling, but it's very variable.
15:03Some of it, it could mean almost nothing and be choice or select.
15:07In this case, you've got gorgeous beef.
15:09Definitely would rate prime.
15:10I would take this home in a second if I saw it in the supermarket.
15:13And it'd have a lot of marbling, so it's going to eat really, really juicy.
15:17All beef after slaughter has to be aged.
15:19After slaughter, the meat tenses up and there's an enzymatic process we need
15:23to break down the meat to make it more tender.
15:25It's either wet age, which means age in a vacuum sealed bag, or dry age,
15:30which means age in a temperature, air velocity, and humidity controlled environment.
15:34For dry aging, we're going beyond just that bare minimum of tenderization.
15:39By doing it with a lot of airflow, with a certain humidity,
15:42we are making it more tender, drying out the meat.
15:44And because we experience juiciness as the ratio of fat to water,
15:50less water means it's going to eat juicier, even the same piece of meat after dry aging.
15:54And the last thing is that we are creating new flavors, just like aging cheese,
15:59through bacterial enzymatic process, as well as other molds and spores in the air.
16:05Dry aging is both science and art.
16:07So when our beef comes in, we put it right in front of the fans,
16:10and we form this crust really, really quickly.
16:13We basically want to create a seal so it doesn't rot or mold.
16:16This actually forms like this really hard and black like beef jerky in like 72 hours.
16:22But if you see right on the other side of it, even like a quarter inch in,
16:26it's perfectly fresh meat.
16:28These three that we've got here are more typical aging.
16:31Two weeks is my standard that we sell at our store.
16:33You'll find it pretty widely at supermarkets.
16:3630 to 45 days is more your premium dry aged product.
16:39Most steakhouses around the country are going for that 28 to 30 day.
16:43I think that's where you see the biggest jump in quality improvement from a fresh
16:47steak to a dry aged steak.
16:48And then as we get into 75 days and beyond, you're really starting to create an ultra premium product,
16:53big flavors, really concentrated beefiness, more tender, but you're going to pay for it.
16:58So we look at these steaks, you're going to see really different texture.
17:01So this is going to be like much softer, right?
17:04It's definitely wetter.
17:05It's because it has more water.
17:06It's that simple.
17:07As we age, meat starts to firm up a little bit.
17:10Like sometimes with the really aged stuff, like I can put a thumb in it and it kind of stays.
17:14Because the meat fibers have been starting to break down.
17:17It's becoming more tender.
17:18There's less water.
17:19It's a premium price for sure.
17:21But especially something in like that 30, 45 day age, I think it's worth the price.
17:25The, you know, more aged stuff is a bit of an acquired taste or personal preference.
17:29But everybody in my experience will like a 28 to 45 day dry aged steak.
17:34Let's cook up the two far ends of these and see how they compare.
17:37So we've cooked off our two week dry age and our 75 day dry age.
17:41Let's give them a taste.
17:43Two week is looking pretty nice.
17:44Cooked to like a pretty nice medium rare, nice and even throughout.
17:47Good char on it.
17:48And this over here is going to be the 75 day.
17:50This has a lot less water content.
17:52So it's going to have a bigger beefier flavor.
17:54Because the water to fat ratio is lower.
17:57This one's super juicy feeling.
17:59A lot of fat.
18:00Pretty excited about it.
18:01A lot of time when you're cutting dry aged beef like this, especially where the fat is,
18:05it's going to have like a stronger flavor.
18:07Almost like a blue cheesiness.
18:09You'll find you taste the aged flavor the most in the fattier cuts and closest to the bone.
18:14So these are all sliced up.
18:15We've got our two week here and our 75 day here.
18:18Our two week dry aged.
18:20Nice beefiness.
18:21It's got a good richness because it's a ribeye.
18:23I'd say a really solid steak for sure.
18:25Let's get into the 75 day.
18:27This is something special.
18:29You don't find this everywhere.
18:31It's way more tender.
18:32Really, really buttery.
18:33And it's got a really big beefy flavor.
18:35Just like reducing a stock, we've taken more water out.
18:38So we've got a lot more concentrated flavors.
18:40Dry aged definitely adds cost to the product.
18:42But if you're in the mood to splurge or a special occasion, definitely worth it.
18:46There you have it.
18:47Everything you need to know to buy a fantastic ribeye.
18:50Feel free to take a pic of this chart and bring it shopping with you.
18:52Know which part you like.
18:54Pick your thickness.
18:55Check the grade and the breed.
18:56Read that label.
18:57Try a dry aged.
18:59And go make a great steak.
19:00And go make a great steak.
19:00gh