{"id":1476,"date":"2020-02-28T16:56:27","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/?p=1064"},"modified":"2020-02-28T16:56:27","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:56:27","slug":"abcs-of-wagyu-beef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/abcs-of-wagyu-beef\/","title":{"rendered":"ABC’s of Wagyu Beef"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What are WAGYU?<\/strong>
WAGYU – a Japanese beef cattle breed \u2013 derive from native Asian cattle. ‘WAGYU’ refers to all Japanese beef cattle, where ‘Wa’ means Japanese and ‘gyu’ means cow. Wagyu were originally draft animals used in agriculture and were selected for their physical endurance. This selection favored animals with more intra-muscular fat cells \u2013 \u2018marbling\u2019 \u2013 which provided a readily available energy source. Wagyu is a horned breed and the cattle are either black or red in color.

Wagyu vs. Kobe Beef
<\/strong>You may have heard \u201ckobe\u201d used interchangeably with \u201cwagyu,\u201d or used to tout an expensive cut of meat. So, what is kobe beef? Kobe is essentially just a brand of wagyu beef, in the same way that Nike is a brand of shoe.
In order for something to be labeled as Kobe beef, first of all, it has to originate in Kobe, Japan. Then, all parties who have a hand in getting this sought-after meat to your table\u2014from the farm to the slaughterhouse to the buyer to the restaurant\u2014has to be licensed by The Kobe Beef Association. \u201cEveryone is paying to be part of the thing called kobe beef,\u201d Heitzeberg says. \u201cBut the final thing is they have to be rated A4 or A5\u2014so everything else could be true, but if it\u2019s an A3, you can\u2019t call it Kobe,\u201d Heitzeberg says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you see the words \u201cAmerican kobe\u201d<\/strong> on a menu, take it as a big red flag\u2014American kobe doesn\u2019t exist<\/strong>. \u201cKobe is from Kobe, Japan, just like Champagne is from Champagne,\u201d Henderson says. \u201cTo be true kobe beef, it has to be from Kobe. [Restaurants] cold be part of an association where they\u2019re able to sell kobe beef, but kobe beef is not able to be produced here.\u201d

What\u2019s the Difference Between Japanese and American Wagyu?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the looser rating system and divergent cattle-farming techniques, the biggest difference between American wagyu and Japanese wagyu is that Japanese wagyu is purebred, where American wagyu is crossbred. \u201c[American wagyu] is still going to be crazy marbled with intense flavor, but it\u2019s most likely wagyu bred with angus,\u201d Henderson says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlmost all of that stuff is angus beef crossbred with wagyu in an uncontrolled, unregulated, unspecified percentage of DNA,\u201d Heitzeberg says. \u201cI\u2019ve eaten my bodyweight several times over in Japanese wagyu and American wagyu, and I haven\u2019t tasted anything that\u2019s angus mixed with wagyu at any percentage that tastes like Japanese wagyu does at 100 percent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides yield and quality grading system, you will also find Beef Marbling System in the classification of Wagyu beef. This grading system specifically looks at the beef marbling, with 1 for the lowest marbling score and 12 for the highest marbling score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Chris Marks CBBQE (Chief BBQ Expert) Three Little Pig\u2019s Rubs & Sauces and Good-One Smoker\/Grills<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What are WAGYU? WAGYU – a Japanese beef cattle breed \u2013 derive from native Asian cattle. ‘WAGYU’ refers to all Japanese beef cattle, where ‘Wa’ means Japanese and ‘gyu’ means cow. Wagyu were originally draft animals used in agriculture and were selected for their physical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[368,369,164,370,102,371,372,21,373,374,375,376,377,378,270,14,379],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbq-tips","category-meats","tag-american-kobe","tag-american-wagyu","tag-angus-beef","tag-angus-beef-crossbred","tag-beef","tag-beef-marbling","tag-best","tag-best-bbq-rubs","tag-best2020","tag-cow","tag-japanese-beef-cattle","tag-japanese-wagyu","tag-kobe-beef","tag-marbled","tag-texas-beef-rub","tag-three-little-pigs-rubs","tag-wagyu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/three-little-pigs-bbq.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}