Beef carcasses from cattle on four nutritional regimes were subjected to selected postmortem temperature treatments to determine if chilling or conditioning would eliminate cold ghortening and improve product characteristics. One-half from each of 38 grass-, short-, long-and forage-fed cattle was chilled at 3°C until 48 hr postmortem. The other half from each carcass was conditioned at 13°C until 8 hr postmortem and then chilled at 3°C for 40 hr. The taste panel indicated longissimus steaks from grass-fed cattle were more tender due to conditioning at 13°C as opposed to chilling at 3°C. Shear force and sarcomere length comparisons, however, did not support the taste panel. Chilling at 3°C did not consistently cause detectable cold shortening. In addition, 13°C conditioning did not significantly accelerate the rate of postmortem tenderization when compared with the 3°C treatment. Even though not always statistically different from the other nutritional regimes, the steaks from grass-fed cattle were consistently rated lowest by the taste panel. Generally no statistical differences were observed between nutritional regimes for shear force and sarcomere length.
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