Australian Angus Beef - The Great Steak!

How do you cook an Australian Angus Beef steak and how do you like it cooked?

First, what cut do you choose? Check out this previous post Australian Angus Beef - Cuts to the chase.

This handy pictorial diagram will give the goods on how you might like your steak, from blue to well done.

How do you test how done your steak is?

Great! Well, we have decided how well to cook our steak. Time to hand over to the experts! This is from      "How to - Steak from Jamie does..."

Australian Angus Beef a great steak!

Australian Angus Beef - Standards

In the early 1990's the Australian Beef Industry investigated declining consumption and after research found that a major contributing factor was the variations of eating quality of cooked beef.

The challenge was to identify the eating quality of beef before it was sold to the consumer.

Unlike the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) beef standards which grade the beef on the degree of marbling and age of the animal at slaughter.

The Australian beef standards are set by a meticulously monitored consumer response system.

What was found after extensive research under the Australian beef industry's Eating Quality Assurance (EQA) program, was that the consumer expectation of eating quality was basically the same the world over.

With this score sheet Meat Standards Australia (MSA) established a meat grading system based on a meat quality score (MQ4) . This score is a numeric representation of the customers rating of a piece of beef.

Tenderness 40%
Juiciness 10%
Flavor 20%
Overall liking 30%
MQ4 (meat quality score) 100%

Beef graded EQA must have a MQ4 score of at least 46 guaranteeing "good everyday quality".

The Australian Angus Beef benefits from the EQA program by not only factoring the standard of the beef from the primary producer but also taking into account the the processes of transport, slaughter, chilling and even cooking of the end product.

History of Australian Angus Beef

The breed of Angus cattle traces its roots to a breed from Scotland around the shires of Aberdeenshire and Angus. The breed is often called "Aberdeen Angus".

A scotsman by the name of Hugh Watson is considered to be the breeds founder and most of the Angus cattle today can be traced back to the animals he developed.


In Hobart, Tasmania on January 20th 1824 aboard the ship "Triton" 8 black cattle, then known as Fifeshires, disembarked. These are regarded as the first of what is now called the Angus breed to reach Australian shores.

Years of selective breeding and rigorous quality control progressed Australian Angus Cattle into one of the finest table meats available in the world today.