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Annual Beltie Magazines
The Belted Galloway Society has produced full-color, 36- to 44-page magazines annually since 2004. An extracts from one of the publications is accessible below. Obtain copies of the most recent printed edition by sending a request with your snail mail address to the Executive Director at Email: executivedirector@beltie.org.
Belties Breed Better Beef
Back in the 1950s early Belted Galloway breeder Harry Prock sold all
the beef he could produ
ce
to famous Bookbinders in Philadelphia for $1 a pound. If you consider
that at the time pork chops for your dinner table cost less than 10 cents
each, it becomes apparent that the quality of Beltie beef was appreciated
by this gourmet club.
From the 1960s onward breeders such as Al Tietig at Stonecroft in Ohio, Ernie Cutter at Beaver Dam in New Hampshire and A.H. Chatfield, Jr. at Aldermere in Maine sold freezer beef, maintaining waiting lists for their occasionally available steers. But many Beltie breeders were too enamored of their uniquely marked pets to consider putting one in the freezer.
Mr. Chatfield in particular mounted campaigns to remind us that meat is the bottom line! A bumper sticker was distributed that mirrored the headline above "Belties breed better beef." A nice alliterative slogan, but the principle was pretty much ignored by hobby breeders.
Today Beltie beef is very much in demand, and more breeders are jumping into direct marketing than ever before. This renaissance can be attributed to two factors: We finally have enough animals so that we can afford to raise steers for the freezer. More importantly, the consumer's new interest in natural food products places the Belted Galloway in the catbird seat.
Few other breeds are as well adapted to production of natural grassfed beef. In recent years our knowledge of this has been expanded by the grassfed trials conducted on the Rose herd at Malabar Farm in Iowa, which support evidence that beneficial CLA (conjugated linolenic acid) is much higher in the animal which has not been fattened on grain.
Recent identification of a "tenderness gene" has been explored and explained by Dr. Michael Caldwell in Wisconsin. Early comparisons indicate that Belties often score 7 or better (on a scale of 1 to 10), while most commercial steers test in the lower ranges of the scale. Dr. Caldwell routinely DNA-types members of his own large herd for this gene, and is currently breeding a Score 9 bull to a group of high-scoring females to see if 9's can be consistently achieved.
Meat producer Loren Olson in Iowa says, "We do need to let our consumers know that it's best to reduce cooking time on lean grassfed beef, as overcooking will make it tough." Carcass hanging time also affects tenderness. Various recommendations call for 1 to 3 weeks on the hook. Most grassfed beef producers opt for 21 days, while grainfed beef producers generally feel about 12 to 14 days is sufficient.
While grassfed beef has been coming to the fore in recent years, it isn't the only way to go. People accustomed to bland supermarket cuts sometimes find the grassfed beef too intense for their taste. The trim fat may appear to their eye as "off-color" because it will be off-white to yellowish in hue, depending on what type of pasture the animal grazed.
This
means that there's an excellent market for grainfed Beltie beef, too.
Most breeders feeding steers confine them for the last 60 to 90 days and
offer measured amounts of grain along with free-choice hay. While the
beneficial CLA will decrease, the marbling will be slightly increased
on the heavily-grained steer, and the thicker layer of trim fat will be
the bright white most folks are used to seeing.
But the flavor and juiciness
remain! Almost without exception, breeders who sell either grainfed or
grassfed Beltie beef enjoy customer enthusiasm and widespread word-of-mouth
advertising that helps build waiting lists for their meat.
