From Grill to Page: Our Story

The Taste of Beef

What makes beef taste so beefy? We do know that even though raw meat is bland, it contains a vast pool of precursor compounds such as amino acids, fats and reducing sugars. Cooking converts these into the flavour and aroma of beef due to the Maillard reaction and lipid oxidation and the cascading series of interactions between them.

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What we perceive on the tongue when eating cooked beef is related to umami - amino acids and small peptides. In the aroma fraction, you find more of the sulfur containing compounds. Lipids also play a big role, but they are tricky because a little lipid oxidation is attractive, but too much lipid breakdown becomes rancid tasting.

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Most of beef's flavour emerges during cooking, when heat allows the amino acids to break down over time, layering their flavours. Sulphurous compounds come from the lean muscle. At low levels, they are meaty, but at higher levels, they can be revolting. While fat in marbling does not have a lot of flavour itself, it acts as a reservoir for the flavour compounds during cooking and delivers them across the mouth. Some of these flavour compounds have an affinity to fats and will more or less absorb into the fat and become available for taste.

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3 important elements contribute to the taste and culinary experience of beef: genetics, environment (feeding and lifestyle) and age.

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