Dry Age, Wet Age

some commercial agers go 80% or more.

it doesn't preserve the food, it keeps it from drying too quickly. our home fridges are dehydrators. the meat drawer might be humid, but for the most part the home fridge dries things quickly.

RRPs reference of the studies earlier tonight are the first thing that speak directly to the real point of the bags. to slow drying and meter it better. the home fridge will dry too much. you get less time to age before the meat dries out.

but apparently the bag slows this.

they offers nothing really as far as food safety (which however seems to be why most are interested in buying them), but they do seem to allow the meat to age longer before losing too much water.

you can dry age without the bags, but i'm thinking if you did one in the dry-aging bag next to another with no bag, at the end of four weeks, the bagged meat would be just as aged but will have lost less water. two things are going on when you dry age. aging (breakdown of the muscle fibers by enzymes, which make it tender and also add flavors as a byproduct), and condensing the meat (removing water to literally concentrate the flavors and fat especially).

part of the idea is to lose water, just not too much.

contrary to the warnings of many, humidity has little to do with food safety (with regard to aging beef). it DOES have to do with how fast it dries.

you can age effectively anywhere from 50% to 80% relative humidity (and i guess you saw even 90% somewhere)... you just will have less time to age the meat in a drier environment.

i go 21-28 days with rib eye subprimals, and 14 or so with strip loin. that's with no bags, in a spare fridge.

some age at temps under 32 (meat won't freeze solid at 32 really), up to a high of maybe 36-38. opening and closing a fridge won't have any effect, you can't cause the meat to warm up appreciably under normal daily opening/closing of a fridge, even the main fridge.

it's less a science than art, but there are logical reasons for everything.

i guess i don't care whether folks bag or not. i used to be confused why the mention of aging beef was met here with indifference... if folks are more willing to try it because of the bags, so be it. it's all good i guess.

just not needed. neither is a special fridge or anti-bacterial lights. those help, but they are like a powered draft unit. insurance, but no substitute for the old humna head and experience.

haven't tried. i'm frankly not worried about the drying. if i had the dry-bag setup i would certainly go 45 days like the place we have that sells aged beef.

i will go 21-28 days. enough flavor develops for me from the aging at that point. the available meat in my area is all choice. if i had prime, well, that'd be another thing altogether. prime is ideal for aging because the fat condenses (there's more of it of course). aging at home in the regular un-bagged way, choice at 28 days is a good happy-medium.

an open bowl of water is something folks'll add to a small wine cooler/fridge. they don't always have any humidity control... but the water can get slimy after a while, unless you add bleach. and that bleachy smell would be horrible in that kinda meat-oriented environment i think.

if you have a normal fridge, even your daily fridge,, it's fine for say 28 days. after that i bag and freeze. if i had a vacuum sealer, i might seal them to stop the drying and just let them wet age after that.

it's kind of a pick-n-choose thing. what do you want to get out of it? and how flexible do you have to be?

from rrp's references, looks like the bags control the loss at a fixed rate in a variety of environments. can't be a bad thing. especially if you have the nads to shoot for 7 weeks or more of aging.

i just submit that it's possible to do it all without any special stuff. just like it's possible to do an overnight without a powered draft unit. would i like a dry-bag sealer and a guru? sure. just don't have the need yet, and have great results so far.

at first it sounded like a gimmick, but rrp and i have been talking offline, and he's been filling me in as it goes. i'd offered that it would be good to do a side by side (bagged versus no bag), but that means he's buying two rib eye primals...

anyway, his notes and the stuff he posted today (the studies) bear out what i think we were trying to figure out.

i just don't want anyone to think it's REQUIRED to have the equipment, but i'm also not trying to denigrate his efforts. no way. he's helped educate me quite a bit, and i think he's learned some stuff from me (maybe). what he has seems workable for him and there's nothing negative about that.

ah shucks, stike, I like it when you get mellow... :laugh:

i wasn't seeing the rationale for the bags, honestly. i think they were looking to me like some gimmick that made folks feel better about putting meat in a fridge for a long time. you know. that it needs to be wrapped to stay "safe".

after RRP shared his results, and we talked back and forth, we started thinking it was actually slowing the weight (water) loss. my stuff loses weight more quickly than his in the bags (from what i can tell).

so the lightbulb went off in my head. hmmm. i could go 45 days with those things. hahha

unwrapped, i top out at four weeks though.

That was my thinking also. Not so much a safety issue, but a slowing of weight loss to allow for longer aging and more intense flavors, without the bag.

Another thought would be to add lemon juice to the tray of water to slow the slime buildup.

Anybody wanna try 60 days???I'm in!

you guys are making me hungry.

you can forego the sheets and towels, FWIW...

"stretch-tite" brand plastic wrap is moisture permeable too. it's like saran-wrap. there are different brands, but those that are very strong and clingy tend to be made of PVC (reformulated). the strength and cling is why we always use it, but it can still allow things to dry out (or, conversely, dry things to get damp) because it slowly allows moisture though itself.

other cling wraps (the ones that aren't clingy or strong) tend to preserve the moisture better (or keep it out).

but maybe you could use the weakness of 'stretch-tite' to your gain.

i wonder if it would work to wrap the meat in something like that.

i never understood the use of the towels, frankly. wicks too much moisture too early, and creates a potential bacteria-favorable environment (although temp control helps that).

get the ribeye if you can... for my money, nothing ages like a rib eye.

if i am going to buy a fresh steak, it's the nystrip, but the rib eye, of all of them, is the one that benefits most from aging. aging it is transformative. goes from being 'just' great to unimaginable.

i should have said "pants-wetting". more pants-wetting than unimaginable.