Playing with steaks part 2

VW Gal

Ok folks, Car Wash Mike and myself have been experimenting with these NY strips this weekend. Mine were EVOO'd and peppered Friday evening, sat out for 1-1/2 hours, then into the fridge uncovered till around 2pm today. As you can see from Mike's post earlier, mine are not swimming in EVOO like his. :P It will be interesting to see if ours are as juicy as his. Stay tuned...

Terri

Car Wash Mike

KC Strips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike

stike

if you want to age a steak, better to keep it wrapped than to leave it uncovered in the fridge. when beef is aged by a butcher, the red (cut) flesh never sees the air because the beef is aged as a primal. this keeps the red flesh moist, while allowing water to evaporate overall, thru the fat layer. then, that dessicated thin layer of fat is trimmed off when the steaks are cut from the primal. if a steak sits exposed to the air, there's of course water evaporation, but it happens from the red flesh, which can dry out the surface if done too long.

if you try to dry age an already cut steak very long, the muscle surface will dry out just like freezer burn can do, though not as bad of course, because freezer burn occurs over months' time. the couple days you had it in the fridge wouldn't cause the overall condensing of the flavor via water loss , often as much as 20% (one purpose of dry aging), while conversely risking drying the surface too much. make any sense? essentially, i guess i'm saying it would dry out the steak the wrong way....

you WOULD get a little flavor boost (from enzymatic action) by wet aging, though and (bacuase it's wrapped) it wouldn't run the risk of drying at the surface or picking up off flavors. just a thought.

what were you looking for from the 1-1/2 hours spent at room temp?