The Irish Dexter difference

Gourmet Irish Dexter... the boutique beef. Why boutique? Simple. When you buy Irish Dexter Beef from Windswept Ranch, it wasn't auctioned off to grow and sell as steroid enhanced, antibiotic fed, raised in a bacteria filled feed lot. Then sold to the beef cartel processors, that sell to the wholesalers that then sell to your grocery store where it's wrapped in a white styrofoam tray with shrink wrap plastic and lots of colorful stickers, where it looks so pristine and nice. And you feed that to your family!?!? Nor do we raise a couple of corn fed Heinz 57 who knows what crossbred beef in the backyard to sell for $2-$3 lb. and you pay the processor... for a little extra unreported income on the side. Cattle ranchers choose their breed on the following: 1. Size and muscle mass  2. Growth rates  3. Calving ease. 4. Price they can get at the sale barn. And that's it. Nothing about taste, tenderness and texture. The reason being it has nothing to with the end goal and doesn't matter to the American beef cartel industry who doesn't want to make things more complicated by acknowledging breeds actually taste different from one another. That's it.

Irish Dexter is uniquely different from both back yard beef and cartel beef. Because of that fact, we raise our beef to sell direct to the consumer, you. The sale barn doesn't care how your beef tastes or how tender it is. They're simply selling pounds to the highest bidder.. the feedlot. The cartel feedlots job is to put pounds on (omega 6 fat)... as fast as possible. When its fat enough, or " made weight" they figure its good to process.  Red, white, tan, brown, black, white face, mottled face. Hereford, Charolais, Simmental , Brangus, Gelbviah, Beefmaster. Any breed. Any color. You name it. Doesn't matter. The cattleman's concern is the same as the cartels concern... big, fast, add fat, make weight. They've been doing it from the beginning of the USDA.  Never  acknowledging that breeds taste different. The American consumer doesn't know that they're buying average tasting beef from a huge machine that's finely tuned for big and fast while ignoring the breeds that truly are superior beef considering taste, tenderness and texture. The industrial beef machine has, over decades, lulled the American consumer into believing it's all the same... except angus.  The American Angus Association has done one heckuva marketing job for a breed that is just another big and fast growing average tasting breed. They use their money for advertising and that supports and encourages all those Angus producers and gets a higher price at the grocery store. No other breed association does what they do. But there's more to good beef than being black and gaining weight. 

We  CHOSE to raise and sell Irish Dexter over all other breeds because of it's superior culinary qualities.  We care how your beef tastes. How tender it is. How flavorful it is. We insist on  really good beef at our table. That's why we raise and sell Irish Dexter. 

The three T's of taste competition. Taste. Tenderness. Texture. All beef breeds are not the same. They don't look the same and they don't taste the same. Just like fish. Trout, catfish and walleye are all fish, but they each look different and taste different. Or coffee. Columbian. Kona. Ethiopian.  Jamaican. It's all coffee but tastes different. The absolute truth is the best tasting beef available in our country is not sold in the sale barns and produced through the cartel. The best tasting breeds dont fit into the Americanized version of industrial beef which are breeds that must grow big and fast to maximize profit. Quality, taste and tenderness is sacrificed and ignored. However, consumers are unaware.

Im not bad talkiing the folks that make a living raising cattle and servicing the beef cartel to feed America. Somebody has to do it. I'm simply saying if you really want the best tasting, naturally tender beef, cartel beef is by far not the beef for your consumer dollar, nor does it possess the culinary qualities of Irish Dexter Gourmet Beef.

Our beef is raised on our small 61 acre ranch. it takes two full years to produce an 800 lb steer. Dexters are slow growing, vs. 16-18  months to grow a  large muscled 1200-1400lb average tasting animal coming out of a feedlot.

Our beef? Pasture raised. Grain finished.  No hormones. No antibiotic feed and water. No crowded disease filled feed lot. Our only additives are grass, grain and well water. The smaller size of Irish Dexter means naturally tender due to small muscle and meat fiber, and Dexter is high in Omega-3 fat like salmon, low in unhealthy Omega-6 which is the fat in the  beef at your grocers. Bad fat. Our steaks are naturally tender and full of flavor. Our burger is lean. Naturally. You wont find grease and water in the skillet when you're done. That's a promise. In fact you may have to add some oil when browning burger.  Dexter Beef flavor is described as big and beefy while the flavor lingers on the pallete. The texture is smooth due to small meat fibers. A competition winning combination. In whole, halves and quarters you get ribeyes, t-bone or KC strips and tenderloin, sirloin steak, chuck steak or roast, short ribs, round steak and hamburger.  We'll review the cut list with you and you decide. We will be taking a minimum of 2 beef monthly through 2022 and we're on schedule, with the ability to take 3-4 if needed. We sell year round. 

Our business is raising superior beef. Our beef is custom processed (cut and packaged) exactly the way you want at our Missouri State Certified processor and we pay for it. We dont raise beef for the sale barn or buy from the sale barn. Otherwise we'd be raising big fast growing, average tasting beef like everyone else. The cartel doesn't buy Irish Dexter because they don't fit the big and fast profile. In fact Dexters sell really cheap at the sale barn. That is all the proof you need to know that to the market cartel, it is quite simply quantity over true quality. It's not that cartel beef is bad beef. It's just as a whole, average tasting. Even when it's disguised with fat.

All beef breeds are not equal. Not only do breeds look different, they are different. They taste different. The color of the meat varies. Different natural tenderness levels (and its not about the omega-6 fat they call prime) as well as different textures.  That's why Irish Dexter  won the American Royal grass fed steak competition beating every other breed. You name it, they lost.  Dexter has never lost a competition to angus. NEVER. Isnt it time for you to "Experience the Dexter difference"?  We are happy to answer any questions you may have and we love to give farm tours 🤠. Give us a call. 417-343-0352.