Pelican Parts Forums

No, not really. However the way it is stored is important.
In general, your freezer is probably not the optimal environment for storage, but it can be fine. Double wrapped in some kind of freezer bag, in the back bottom of the freezer.

People don't think about what happens every time they open their freezer door, it is like a little mini defrost. As a rule, I try to avoid freezing, because it is not really the storage that degrades the quality, but the thawing. Don't ever thaw good cuts in the sink, always in a dish in the fridge. Even when doing so, you will lose some moisture content as the meat thaws.

@DanielDudley, Good question! I have never had horse meat, but I did see it for sale when I was in Italy :) It depends on how you are cooking really. If you want to pan sear something in a skillet, a flat iron steak (as the name suggests) is a great cut and reasonably priced. It is part of the shoulder and is also known as top blade steak.
If you want to grill, there are 4 main steaks that we always recommend to yield excellent results;
Ribeye
T-bone/Porterhouse
New York Strip
Top Sirloin

***(Beef tenderloin aka Fillet Mignon is an outlier. It is a holding muscle, only 1 of 3 in an entire animal, and a superb cut that is worth a whole discussion thread on its own, but you all know it is good so I am not going to talk about it.)

That is the order which I prefer them. It is also, from the top, the most to the least marbled. Generally speaking the more fat the better. Some people don't like a lot of fat, and that is ok--different strokes and all. But allow me to also spell out an important classification scale used for all beef;
Prime
Choice
Select
Other (canned meats, dried beef, etc)

As a rule, Prime beef will be harder to find and considerably more expensive than Choice beef. It is heavily marbled and to the untrained eye looks really fatty and not desireable. However, it will in fact provide the best eating experience. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Select grade beef, which has very little internal fat and looks like you imagine a steak should. It is still ok quality, buy you should spend a few bucks more if you are going to buy a steak.

In the middle, and what I sell is Choice grade beef. It provides a great experience virtually every time, and as someone who cuts hundreds of steaks a week I can say with certainty, that the primals are very uniform in terms of quality. One steak is virtually identical to the next.

With that said, where each steak comes from off the rib/loin is not equal.

Here is what I like: http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1446992908.jpg
The rib deckle, in my mind, is the best part of any cow. Better than any fillet, strip, shoulder medallion, delmonico/cowboy rib steak, etc

Here is a cut from the opposite end of the rib (same steak, different experience)
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1446992992.jpg

And here is a Prime steak, as opposed to the other two, which I am labeling as Choice without further info.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1446993059.jpg

And that is about all the work I want to do on my day off. But feel free to ask any more specific questions you may have.