Dry aged beef at home, Take 3 (pic heavy!)

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

I thought I would take a minute to share pics of my latest home dry aging project. If you search back you will probably find a couple of other threads I posted on the same topic. Unfortunately one of them got a bit inappropriate so I appologize!

Anyway, I started with a whole boneless USDA Prime strip loin (NY strip) about 13# that I purchased from Costco for $7.99/LB

In the past I always wrapped with cheesecloth and changed it out every day or two until the cloth stopped soaking up the liquid I formerly referred to as blood.(see old thread for exp.) On the advice of a member by the name of Stike (I believe) I skipped the cheesecloth all together and just placed the meat on a rack/sheet pan and put into my drying fridge.
About 30 days later at between 33 and 35 degrees it comes out looking like this;

(I think that pic was at the finish)

The bottom

Finally I embarked on the rather difficult process of cutting through the leathery dry exterior and turning the cow into steaks. This time I went a bit thinner, about 1.25 to 1.5 inches. Last time I went with about 1.5 to 1.75 inches.

And finally I trimmed the thin leathery exterior crust to leave a finished steak;

Notice my little boy Petey in the pic, he loves trimming day!

The difference that I noticed between the previous cheesecloth method and this method was mainly the dark purple ring that appeared around the meaty side of the steaks. That was not as pronounced when I used the cheesecloth. I theorize that the cheesecloth soaked out most of the liquid that I believe caused the ring.
Flavor wise I believe these were the finest steaks I have ever tasted. I don't know if it was because of the quality of the meat, skipping the cheesecloth, the thinner cut or just the way I seasoned and grilled them but the steaks were unbelievable! Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of the finished cooked product, sorry!
(For all of you private investigators out there I can not guarantee the accuracy of any of this information but I promise that this is the way I remember it and I assure you that I took all of the photos myself!)

StoicDude · August 2009

Great job! I wish I could find the same meat here. We usually get USDA Prime at Costco but they are cut already.
Dry aging is a whole different story.

Ill be grilling some USDA Prime fillets tomorrow that I got from costco. Can't wait to see how they come out.

Large Marge · August 2009

interesting stuff. What's a drying fridge and how does it work? Any health / safety issues with trying to dry on one's own? thx for sharing

Large Marge · August 2009

I just answered my own questions. This article explains the process fairly well. I see why you use a separate fridge, size and smell issues huh?

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

StoicDude wrote:

Great job! I wish I could find the same meat here. We usually get USDA Prime at Costco but they are cut already.
Dry aging is a whole different story.

Ill be grilling some USDA Prime fillets tomorrow that I got from costco. Can't wait to see how they come out.

If your Costco carries Prime beef just ask them for a whole package. They have it in Cryovac and it is even cheaper than the pre-cut steaks. Even if you don't dry age it it is nice to cut your own and vacuum bag them.

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

Large Marge wrote:

I just answered my own questions. This article explains the process fairly well. I see why you use a separate fridge, size and smell issues huh?

It is just a normal fridge with a few simple modifications. The modifications aren't even really necessary but you do need a dedicated fridge. You open your main fridge way too often and you could never maintain the temperature as low as you need.

There are no smell issues at all, the only smell is a wonderfully faint but rich aroma. If you have any smell stronger than that you did something wrong and need to throw your meat out!
I am sure there is some danger of contamination but if things go south your nose should warn you. I have done many of these with no problems whatsoever. The longest I have gone was about 40 days or so if I remember correctly.
Give it a try, I bet it will change the way you view a steak!

thegrillster · August 2009

Could these steaks be frozen after the dry aging process and still maintain the flavor?

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

thegrillster wrote:

Could these steaks be frozen after the dry aging process and still maintain the flavor?

If you put that in your freezer I think you'd be in trouble!

gdenby · August 2009

I'm glad to hear that you recommend a dedicated drying 'fridge. I was talking to a fellow I work with yesterday who insisted that a regular 'fridge would do the job, but also admitted he used a spare 'fridge whenever he dried a pieces.

stike · August 2009

gh!

don't trim the good stuff. the firm brown stuff is the best.

you only want to trin off anything truly dried, like a piece that pokes out all by itself and that's hard as a rock.

there's nothing wrong with the surface.

still, looks like you have plenty of brown left, but don't try to skin the thing and create a whole new surface or anything. all they do when they slice these up is just that; slice them up. and dangling bits come off, but that's it. the only other time you'll see them fuss with the exterior is if there's mold, and they just scrape that off.

looks good.

stike · August 2009

ignore that paper towl cr^p. that towel idea is one pernicious thing.... that one won't go away anytime soon. suffice it to say, no commercial dry aging operation uses towels (paper or otherwise), ever. it retards the dring, and creates a bacterial harbor...

stike · August 2009

yes

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

stike wrote:

gh!

don't trim the good stuff. the firm brown stuff is the best.

you only want to trin off anything truly dried, like a piece that pokes out all by itself and that's hard as a rock.

there's nothing wrong with the surface.

still, looks like you have plenty of brown left, but don't try to skin the thing and create a whole new surface or anything. all they do when they slice these up is just that; slice them up. and dangling bits come off, but that's it. the only other time you'll see them fuss with the exterior is if there's mold, and they just scrape that off.

looks good.

Most of what I trimmed off was the the stuff that was like leather and some excess fat. It was so hard I could barely cut it with a razor sharp knife!
If you look in the last photos you will see plenty of dark brown ring left around the edge. Next time I will try cutting one off and cooking it as is and see if the leather softens up enough to eat.

stike · August 2009

you can use a regular fridge, alton brown does so. you just risk off flavors from other foods on the fridge.

if you use a regular fridge (the ne you keep your other food in), you might want to protect the meat with a coffin of tupperware pierced all over with holes to maintain air circulation. it will protect the meat from spills from above

a regular home fridge will hold the right temps (if it didn't you milk and other foods would go bad too), between 32-38, especially in a dedicated meat drawer. but a lesser used fridge in the basement (my beer fridge works fine) is better. put it down on the bottom.

frequent opening and closing of the fridge isn't a big issue either. standing there for five minutes at a time won't change the temp of the meat, but it's just better to avoid it. a spare fridge is best, but by no means required.

people walk into and out of commercial coolers all day. maintain the right temps and you are ok.

the only real issue is that commercial coolers keep the humidity a bit higher, which slows the drying. you don't want to desiccate the thing, and if you leave it 45 days, you can dry the meat too much. you want to find a balance. long enough to let the enzymes do their work, but not so long as to dry it out. that's why commercial coolers are preferred. but the home-dry-ager, going maybe two or three weeks, isn't in danger of over drying the meat.

stike · August 2009

well...

i bet there was nothing more dried on it than what was on this. hahaha

that stuff is incredibly firm yet still moist.

it might be, though, that going 45 days in a home fridge is giving you much drier surface than is typically intended when thy do it commercially.

the commercial coolers have higher humidity, so they go 45 days (where i am anyway), and that allows the enzymes that much longer to work without the thing losing too much moisture. you want about 20% loss (water).

anyway, if you are happy, that's all that counts. just saying, no one trims that aggressively. much of what the premium is is that drier outer layer

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

Great pic, looks very similar to what I end up with. Thanks again for all the advice, too bad your not in Florida or I'd have you come and critique them first hand!

StoicDude · August 2009

Thank you for the advice. Ill have to ask the butcher at Costco to give me one of those Cryovac packs.

So let me get this, you place the steaks/ whole loin on a rack in a pan and just put it in a fridge?!?
If that's the case, how do you know you are doing it right. We have dry aged beef at a local butcher, bit its over $20 a pound.
Anybody try this with just 1-2 steaks? Much easier loss if it doesn't come out right.
I thought I was a bit OCD about steaks. You guys take it to a whole other level! :-)

Little Chef · August 2009

Stike...By chance do you have a pic of that dried meat cooked? I have always been under the impression the dried outer layer IS trimmed off. Would love to see it cooked out of curiosity?
Thanks!

stike · August 2009

well... don't take it as criticism. take it as one fan of dry aging to another.

i think dry aged beef is one of the finest things that is fairly easy enough to be done at home.

i can't make chateau haut brion, but i can make a damn good dry aged rib eye!

i also appreciate the fact that you actually DO it. don't tell anyone how simple it is or everyone will do it. you know there are fifty people looking at your pics saying "i'd never eat that! in the refrigerator for 6 weeks?!?!?!" hahaha

they have no clue what they are missing

stike · August 2009

can;t do steaks. his steaks have a small surface that was exposed to the dry air. steaks themselves would dry out too much. you can wet age. basically, and i ain't kidding, wet aging is just leaving a steak in it's wrapping for a week or two beyond the sell-by date.

Little Chef · August 2009

I will follow THIS advice as soon as Bubba Tim grows a full head of hair! :laugh: :silly: :woohoo:

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

StoicDude wrote:

Thank you for the advice. Ill have to ask the butcher at Costco to give me one of those Cryovac packs.

So let me get this, you place the steaks/ whole loin on a rack in a pan and just put it in a fridge?!?
If that's the case, how do you know you are doing it right. We have dry aged beef at a local butcher, bit its over $20 a pound.
Anybody try this with just 1-2 steaks? Much easier loss if it doesn't come out right.
I thought I was a bit OCD about steaks. You guys take it to a whole other level! :-)

It is pretty simple. I strongly recommend using a dedicated frige for it. Be sure to check your fridge temp several times over the course of a few days to ensure that it is staying between about 33 and 36. I put several gallon jugs of water in my frige to increase mass which helps the frige maintain its temp and I believe it also lowers the amount of air in the frige which helps the meat from getting too dry.
You can not dry age individual steaks. Trust me, you will not ruin the meat if you do a whole one. With the first hunk of meat you age just let it go for about a week and cut off the end steak and grill it up and see what you think. Give it a few more days and try another. Continue this process and you will find what degree of aging suits your tastes the best.
The main reason dry aged beef is so expensive is because it can lose a tremendous amount of its original weight between evaporation and trimming.

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

stike wrote:

well... don't take it as criticism. take it as one fan of dry aging to another.

i think dry aged beef is one of the finest things that is fairly easy enough to be done at home.

i can't make chateau haut brion, but i can make a damn good dry aged rib eye!

i also appreciate the fact that you actually DO it. don't tell anyone how simple it is or everyone will do it. you know there are fifty people looking at your pics saying "i'd never eat that! in the refrigerator for 6 weeks?!?!?!" hahaha

they have no clue what they are missing

I don't take it as criticism at all, I really appreciate the advice. I am no expert by any stretch of the imagination.
I need to find a source for some bone in whole ribeye like your pic! Haven't done that one yet. Do you need a band saw to cut it or just cut between the bones?

StoicDude · August 2009

Thanks GulfCoast. I might have to try that. Now I have to justify buying a small fridge and leaving it in there.
Does a small fridge work?
One thing though, how do you go back to eating normal steak? Haha.

StoicDude · August 2009

Thanks GulfCoast. I might have to try that. Now I have to justify buying a small fridge and leaving it in there.
Does a small fridge work?
One thing though, how do you go back to eating normal steak? Haha.

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

StoicDude wrote:

Thanks GulfCoast. I might have to try that. Now I have to justify buying a small fridge and leaving it in there.
Does a small fridge work?
One thing though, how do you go back to eating normal steak? Haha.

I would imagine that a small fridge would be fine as long as it can hold a steady temp but don't bother with a small fridge if you can fit a normal one. You can probably pick one up at a garage sale for $50 and it is nice to have the extra fridge space when you are not aging beef!
Once you start you will have no need to go back to normal steaks! I probably have 20 vacuumed up in my freezer right now.

stike · August 2009

it's never taken down to "new meat". only the over-dried stuff is removed.

here's a before after, but not of that chunk, some others.

i went to julia child's very own butcher and bought HER dry aged beef. the butcher was kind enough to scrape off the mold. but he'd never dare to trim it....

if there's an inedible tag of stuff hanging off, yeah, that comes off. but it is never wholly skinned to reveal a whole new surface.

here's a rib eye raw (aged 45 days)

And here it is cooked.

here's a strip. strips don't benefit from aging as much as ribeyes, in my biased opinion. simply because they aren't as fatty though. they still get the enzyme luvin'

and cooked.

can't really tell from those photos

...found another chunk of rib eye. this was 45 days from the butcher shop. untrimmed

stike · August 2009

well. it's a shame. wet aging can easily go six weeeks in the fridge in cryovac. most folks will throw out something a week old. but none of them have a reason other than "well... i dunno. it is old"

there is no reason to throw it out if it has been properly taken care of.

just most folks don't take the time to understand what's actually going on, and so they toss it.

wet aged beef. it (and dry aged) are entirely legal and simple things to serve to folks.

so someone, please, please explain the logic behind this:

a cow is slaughtered and hung for a week, then broken down into primals. one of these primals goes into a refrigerator, nothing highly technical, and stays there without being wrapped in anything, for six weeks.

the other primal is shipped to a grocery store, where it is broken down into steaks. the steaks sit out for a week, whereupon they are moved into the end of the case and placed on manager's special because they are a little brown and going to be "past the freshness date". a guy buys one, puts it in his fridge, and goes on vacation for two weeks.

he comes home and cooks it. not bad.

three weeks later, for his buddy's 40th birthday he decides to splurge, and goes to buy 45 day dry aged steaks. the butcher cuts them off the primal from the same chunk of cow, which has aged three more weeks past the date when the guy ate his steak, which was from the same cow.

why should he have thrown out the steak he got from the grocery store if it sat in his fridge for two weeks?

seriously.

i'm not talking guidelines, i'm talking reality.

i don't see how you could understand how wet and dry aging works, and then be afraid of a steak that's a week beyond the sell by.

alton brown admits buying cryovac'd primals and leaving them in his fridge as long as eight weeks.

cheese is nothing more than rotted milk, after all.

people are afraid of their food instead of masters over it.

stike · August 2009

the ribeyes, sadly, are 20 bucks a pound. i get them from the butcher. you can get boneless primals.

the reason bone-in tastes better is merely that in trimming off bone, you trim away fat. i have heard folks say the bone-in gives you more flavor because of the marrow from the bone. not in a steak it doesn't that marrow ain't leaching thru bone. doesn't happen. if you make beef stock, you need to smash bones and boil them to get the marrow out. that marrow isn't going to do anything on a steak after ten minutes on a grill. hahaha

but if you trimmed off that bone, you'd trim off some fat, and fat is flavor.

you can get aribeye primal easily enough. you can dry aged choice. i can't find prime around here. gotta find me a costco

oh. reminds me. if you DO have a costco, have them just give you the primal. i know they have prime, but they cut the steaks up, right? just ask them for the whole rib eye, in the original cryovac.

GulfCoastBBQ · August 2009

stike wrote:

the ribeyes, sadly, are 20 bucks a pound. i get them from the butcher. you can get boneless primals.

the reason bone-in tastes better is merely that in trimming off bone, you trim away fat. i have heard folks say the bone-in gives you more flavor because of the marrow from the bone. not in a steak it doesn't that marrow ain't leaching thru bone. doesn't happen. if you make beef stock, you need to smash bones and boil them to get the marrow out. that marrow isn't going to do anything on a steak after ten minutes on a grill. hahaha

but if you trimmed off that bone, you'd trim off some fat, and fat is flavor.

you can get aribeye primal easily enough. you can dry aged choice. i can't find prime around here. gotta find me a costco

oh. reminds me. if you DO have a costco, have them just give you the primal. i know they have prime, but they cut the steaks up, right? just ask them for the whole rib eye, in the original cryovac.

I think the bone adds flavor, not just the fat that is trimmed off with it. I am convinced that there is something in the bone that gives the meat a sweeter taste.
I get the USDA prime primal cryovac cuts from costco but the ribeye is already de-boned. They don't sell bone in ribeye at all.

emilluca · August 2009

Definite Prime the marbling was the best I have seen in years. These steaks would have been tender from day one. The taste came with age.
I am trying to find a prime grass feed steer. The small dairy close to me has some great choice grade all grass feed but have not gotten the right grass to get to prime.

E

Dry aged beef at home, Take 3 (pic heavy!)

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