Feast! Fine Foods

site navigator

• About Feast
• Christmas Orders
• Our Quality Products
• Selection & usage tips
• Wine & produce Partners
• Savour
• Restaurants
• Where to purchase
• Overseas enquires

Selection and usage tips

LAMB

The most critical factor in any selection of meat is trust. Trust in the person selling you the meat and trust in the farmer who grew it in the first place. We welcome questions from our customers about how our meat has been produced and about the people who grow it for us.

Breed:-The dominant breed of sheep in Australia is the Merino - famous throughout the world for it's wool. Most lambs are grown from Merino or merino cross mothers with a meat breed sire. Hay Valley lamb is a selection of some of the finest lamb grown via this method. At Feast Fine Foods however we also have 2 of the very few lamb brands that are derived solely from meat breeds of sheep. Maylands Farm Lamb is derived from a Tefrom base and Pure Suffolk Lamb is a black faced suffolk lamb. You can taste and see the superior meat quality and texture that occurs when lamb is grown in this way in both of these brands.

Feed:-Lamb for the first 6 weeks of it's life feeds predominately on it's mothers milk. By the time it is 16- 20 weeks old it will have swapped to a complete grass diet. Young lamb under 8 weeks is known as milk fed , a little older up to 16 weeks old they are known as suckers and they have had a mixed grass and milk diet. Lamb beyond 20 weeks will be "finished" under a range of different systems. This can be on irrigated pasture, crop stubbles or via grain supplementation.

Cooking Smell :- Lamb meat can have a unique "smell" while fast cooking. This is developed as the lamb is older and offensive smells normally mean that the meat being cooked is not lamb but rather hogget or more likely mutton.The smell is related to lanolin content and lamb with a higher concentration of the Merino breed can have a higher prevelance of this trait. If you are slow cooking any sheep meat any smells will be greatly reduced

Ageing:- Lamb can be aged as beef is but only about half as long so generally 2-3 weeks "Dry aged" or 6 weeks in a cryovac. It does improve in exactly the same way beef does

Meat Colour:- Genuine lamb varies from pale pink to a darker red. At the darker red colours however consumers should be on the look out as to if it is really hogget or mutton they are being sold**. If the price is very low then it probably is not the real thing. Milk fed lamb generally only available from June to September are the palest of colour followed by spring lamb available from August to November.

The Strip Brand:-Without doubt this is the critical selection tip when buying lamb. By law only lamb can be "branded" with a strip brand which is put along the whole length of the lamb. It is fair to say any "lamb" sold which has no strip brand is most likely hogget or mutton. Consumers should be especially careful when buying cuts such as backstraps and lamb rounds as there is no way of telling if it is genuine lamb and the only way to tell is twofold - trust and if the price is too good to be true it probably is.

Fat Colour :- Very white fat is generally an indication that the lamb has been grain finished, cream or yellower colours are an indication of grass fed lamb.

Fat Depth:- Lambs that are extremely lean as a carcase can have problems in terms of consistency of tenderness. Best quality lamb has a generous fat cover which can be trimmed before or after cooking.

Bones:- Meat on the bone has that extra special flavour whatever cooking method you choose. Bone in meat does not have the same shelf life as boneless product and should be frozen or consumed as soon as possible after purchase.

Marbling:- This is the flecks of fat contained within the meat of a loin. These melt in the cooking process but act to prevent drying out of the lamb in the cooking process.

Sinew, silverskin and gristle :- as lamb is a relatively young product these should not be an issue. If you are experienceing chewy or gristley lamb you might want to see if it really is lamb that you have been buying.

.......back to Selection guide

** There is nothing wrong with quality Hogget or Mutton meat however you should not pay lamb prices for this as it is unethical and if you do want to buy hogget or mutton you should be buying it from someone who labels it as such