*2.4. Warner-Bratzler Shear Force*

Steaks designated for WBSF determination were thawed for 24 h at 4 ◦C then cooked on an electric clamshell grill (George Foreman, Model GRP1060B, Middleton, WI, USA) to an internal temperature of 71 ◦C. A thermometer (Model 35140, Cooper-Atkins Corporation, Middlefield, CT, USA) was used to record the peak internal temperature. Cooked steaks were cooled at 4 ◦C for 24 h before removing 6 cores (1.27 cm diameter) parallel to the muscle fiber orientation [17]. A single, peak shear force measurement was obtained for each core using a texture analyzer (Shimadzu Scientific Instruments Inc., Lenexa, KS, USA, Model EZ-SX) with a Warner-Bratzler attachment. Measurements of the peak shear force value were averaged to obtain a single WBSF value per steak.

#### *2.5. Ether Extract*

At 3 days postmortem, the anterior face of each striploin was removed during fabrication and frozen at −20 ◦C and later used to determine percent crude fat using the ether extract method described by Mohrhauser et al. [18]. Steaks were thawed slightly and all exterior fat, epimysial connective tissue, and additional muscles were removed leaving the longissimus muscle for evaluation. Samples were minced, immersed in liquid nitrogen, and powdered for 15 s using a Waring commercial blender (Waring Products Division, Model 51BL32, Lancaster, PA, USA). Homogenized samples were weighed in duplicate 5-g samples into dried aluminum tins, covered with dried filter papers, and dried in an oven at 100 ◦C for 24 h. Dried samples were then placed into a desiccator and were reweighed after cooling. Samples were extracted using petroleum ether in a side-arm Soxhlet extractor (Thermo Fischer Scientific, Rockville, MD, USA) for 60 h followed by drying at room temperature and subsequent drying in an oven at 100 ◦C for 4 h. Dried extracted samples were placed into a desiccator for 1 h and were cooled and then reweighed. Crude fat was calculated by subtracting the pre-extraction weight from the post-extraction sample weight and expressed as a percentage of the pre-extraction sample weight.
