My uncle's advice about cutting against the grain was dead wrong

My uncle Bill has been breaking down cows for 30 years. He told me last Thanksgiving you should always cut against the grain on every beef cut. So I followed that on a whole strip loin I broke down last week. Ended up with a bunch of chewy steaks from the sirloin end. Got talking to a guy at the meat counter who works at a steakhouse downtown. He said for tougher cuts like sirloin you want to cut with the grain before cooking, then against after resting. Has anyone else gotten bad advice from family butchers that messed up a whole piece of meat?

3 comments

3 Comments

river_bailey21mo ago

Yeah the sirloin end is exactly where that rule falls apart. I mean you basically need to figure out how much connective tissue is in each section before you decide how to cut it. Wasting a whole strip loin on bad butchering advice is the worst.

gibson.sean1mo ago

And people wonder why half of us are scared to trim our own meat now. You spend good money on a whole strip loin, follow the standard rules, and end up with a pile of gristle on one end and a perfect steak on the other. The real trick is you have to treat that sirloin tip like a completely different cut, almost like it's asking for a different cooking method altogether. But nobody tells you that in the fancy YouTube videos, they just make it look easy. Next thing you know you're staring at a $80 piece of beef wondering if you should have just bought the pre-cut steaks and saved yourself the headache.

thomas_roberts1mo ago

Learned this one the hard way myself a few years back @gibson.sean. What finally worked for me was just separating that sirloin tip end completely before I even bothered trimming the rest. I treat it like its own little roast now, slow cook it with some onions and peppers for tacos or slice it thin for stir fry. The main loin gets cut normal and cooks way more even that way. Still nerve wracking spending that much on a single piece of meat though, not gonna lie.