Look at this wagyu in 3D. Is it worth it? We'll take a look. It's the rib eye challenge. It's time to wagyu from Costco, Prime, versus a Japanese wagyu and also American wagyu. Stick around. We'll take a deep dive right now. Hey there, it is Bill West with BBQTricks.com. About a year ago I did a comparison video. I called it wagyu. Is it worth it? And I compared a brisket from it was actually snake river farms to a Costco brisket. And I got a lot of feedback. A lot of... It's hard for me to like read through the comments just because it was kind of painful for me. I felt like I did a really good kind of comparison. What I was thinking in the review was okay we've got a actually chose a choice brisket from Saint... or not Saint-Sclub from Costco. And I got a brisket American wagyu from anyway. I talk all about it in the video. American wagyu from snake river farms. And a lot of people thought that was an unfair comparison because I did choice compared to wagyu. And it was American wagyu. And so it was balancing act. Anyway, I think that video stands... I tried to be fair with it and stands alone. You can see my results there. But to kind of revisit this I thought I'd do it with some beautiful wagyu steaks. This one actually a boneless rib-eye Japanese from my friends at meet and bone. And I actually spent a lot of time talking to Gabriel and Lewis Mata from the CEO for meet and bone about you know whether the wagyu greetings are worth it and an interesting different responses to all of it. I'm going to season these up with just a real simple actually I'm going to use Saskatchewan seasoning and we'll do a side-by-side comparison. But just looking at these in the packaging you can see already there is definitely a difference with wagyu. I didn't see it with the brisket I've done before but here and especially when you start talking about Japanese wagyu for sure no doubt there is a visual difference and I didn't see that in the video before. And I asked Lewis does it really matter and he said kind of depends on the cuts. This is what he said. It doesn't it doesn't like for example prime it's still prime anything prime so it's going to be high quality. The difference is like the beef braiding is only looking for the most part that the maturity of the cow there's a few things that I'll look at with mostly maturity and it's going to look at the marble. But that doesn't tell the whole story. So the USDA goes up as far as prime and that's it and they'll look at these two factors. When you look at other countries like Australia and Japan they do a similar but with a lot more detail but at the end of the day what I've discovered is what matters is the details. The value is in the details. The difference between a $50 cowboys stake prime and a $40 cowboys stake prime it may be how that cat was fat and how it was treated and how it was cut. Was it but is it butchered if this was is a state trend and cut by hand is it wet aged one thing that people don't realize is that every single piece of beef that you've had has been aged it's been aged at least seven days. So whether if you age four days and you wait or you age 20 or 30 days and I'm talking wet aging you're gonna have a completely different experience once going to be a lot more tender than the other and that adds cost. So yeah the labeling is a little bit I would say it's a good start to look at but there's also a sweet spot on some steaks that are choice that can be almost as good as a prime and then you're saving the premium. On the flip side there's some cuts where it's worth going for the prime and there's some cuts where it isn't. So every single grade of beef in the world be it Australian, American or or or Japanese you're judging the whole steer by the river. That doesn't necessarily translate as well to the rest of the animal. So that's where it makes a difference to know the details. No worries. Is that the case in in US it's basically just out of the river? Yeah everywhere we're all looking at the river when it comes to grading beef. So let's get these going we've got rib eyes and they look good. I tried to get the same thickness. Boy look at that thing. That's one. Then we've got these beauties for meat and bone it'll start with. This one here is a boneless rib eye BMS level 6 to 7. So this should be considered an American breed angus mix and I believe what Lewis says is these are they they recommend this is like the best buy for your money and you get a great stake. So 6 or 7 BMS with that and then here's a beautiful one a BMS 8 9 which is really getting up there from meat and bone and unlike when I did the brisket's before you couldn't see as much of a difference when I compared and I was surprised the American Wagyu brisket to the Costco it was a Costco choice I really thought you would but I think it goes to show you that the Costco is really pretty good but so look at this one more level up this is the the different levels and as you can see here there's a big difference like the me just saki is insane like literally it's almost more fat and beef it's super rich you look at the steak and you say oh I would eat that in harbiet and then when you're halfway through it you're like wow why is it so filling and it is because how rich it is a BMS 8 9 to me is one of the most spectacular rib bites I've ever had it's actually that makes between beefy extremely tender extremely favorable steak which approaches the richness of the me just saki but it doesn't quite get there so to me that's that's perfect the 6 7 is a good high grade American Wagyu rib eye which is a great highest value and it's it's got a good flavor so here they are all seasoned up let's pop them on the grill we're gonna go hot and fast just cook them for a couple minutes each side and see how they taste so yeah the Japanese a 5 Wagyu is a BMS 9 plus it's like the best of the best so good it did melts in your mouth it's like butter beefy butter they all had a great beef flavor and I season them all the exact same even the Costco tasted good but it's all in the level of succulents I would say and I'll try and show you these in order and I'll cut here the Wagyu a 5 Japanese BMS 9 plus and BMS is the beef marbling score and meat and bone has this all mapped out on their website nice and clear when I cut this you're gonna see it's it's actually looks maybe more white than it is it's truly nice and medium rare but it almost looks white because of all the fat it has in here and again no doubt the Japanese Wagyu was as succulent as you can get but let's look at these other ones too so here's all of them on one cutting board you've got the the Japanese on the left on the very top you've got the BMS 8 to 9 beef marbling score which is the one that's the one to get it's best best you can get closest to it is still an Angus Wagyu mixed and then on the top right of your screen my left hand is the Wagyu BMS 6 to 7 which was they say the best for the money best in I would agree and it is one notch better than the Costco which is a simple prime which again Costco was fine there you have so there you go that is exactly what we're dealing with I would say they meat and bone thank you these steaks are incredible and even Costco's prime is good but you can definitely see Wagyu is worth it when it gets to these higher levels especially the Japanese you can definitely see the difference I mean it's just pretty incredible and it's translucent here I can see light coming through it I don't know if you can the other way around but this Japanese is unbelievable I'll talk into Greg over at Bullistic Barbecue and I agree you take about there's something about this almost just every bite makes you smile or something it's that good Japanese Wagyu thank you mean bone Gabriel Lewis is Wagyu worth it when it comes to rib eyes absolutely and there's so many different levels find out more about meat and bone I put a link to their website in the description box here and more on different meat you can get through them and the brisket video as well for more tips tricks other fun stuff anytime just check it out at www.barbecuetricks.com