23
Apr
Posted by Michael as Food

Some people consider dry aging steak to be a lost art. Basically Dry aging steak is when beef hangs in a refrigerated cooler at a specific temperature and humidity for 10 to 28 days after it’s been harvested from the animal, and prior to cutting. When this is down two things happen.
- Moisture evaporates from the muscle, creating a greater concentration of beefy flavor and taste.
- The meat is tenderized by the beef’s natural enzymes break down.
Now, this is not done very often anymore, but it is something you can do in your home. Here’s how you do it.
- Get the right meat – USDA Prime or USDA Choice – Yield Grade 1 or 2 ONLY…it is very important that you select only the best quality meat for this. These high quality meats have a thick layer of fat around them protecting the meat from spoiling during the aging process.You must buy aWHOLE ribeye or loin strip…you CANNOT age individual steaks.
Once you have the meat, unwrap it, rinse it in cold water and allow it to drain – then pat it dry with paper towels.
- Wrap it Up - Wrap the meat in clean, large, plain white cotton dish towels, and place it on the bottom of the refrigerator.
- Change and wait - The towels must be changed each day – replaced with new, fresh, clean towels. Continue this process for 10 days to 2 weeks.
- Cut it - After you have allowed it to age, you can cut steaks off of each end. Leave the remained in the fridge to continue aging. You can continue to cut steaks from the meat for up to 21 days after you started the aging process. After that time, any uneaten meat should be thrown out. Alternatively, you can freeze the steaks for a few months if you wish.
- Cook and Enjoy – Put that bad boy on the grill and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
8 Responses
Kevin
May 8th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
1Can i dry age meat that has already been wet age? if not how can you tell if what is at the store has been wet age?
Thanks
zach williams
March 18th, 2008 at 6:59 am
2if you should throw it out after 21 days then how dors lobels dry age their meat for 6 months?
Yolanda
August 12th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
3Hello Zack,
The receipe above is for the home body meat ager. Lobels dry aged meat is done in a temparture and humidity cintroled enviornment. Also, they employ special uv lights to kill any harmful bacteria ensure we get good meat. You can do the same. The tem p of your fridge has to be abour 36 degrees fareheit, humidity 70 to 64 no more and you would want to have good air circulation. If you want to get fancy, buy some of the uv lights ($36 per light) to make sure no harmful bacteria grow. Whala! Move over Lobels. If you do this, then you wil get a very hard, dark colo meat on the outside of the aged meat. Simply cut this off and discard. Then proced to cut your steaks. You can freeze what you don’t eat right away.
Steakman
March 9th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
4You can dry age at home without UV lights or any mess. Use Drybags specially designed to dry age in your fridge. Vacuum seal a boneless ribeye or striploin into the Drybag, put it into your fridge. Make sure its on a wire rack as the meat has to have air all the way around it. Age for 2-3 weeks. Pull the meat out of the bag, trim the “bark” and you have perfect dry aged steaks, butterknife tender and delicious.
Check out http://www.drybagsteak.com
Kami
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
5I’ve used the Drybags and find they produce a great dry-aged steak. None of the worries of what is or might be growing on the meat–and no funky smells in the fridge.
I’m not sure how they let the moisture out while keeping the vacuum, but there was a study done with the bags and they were proven safe. They certainly work–the meat dries and hardens beautifully to deep, deep red.
If you like dry-aged steak–or if you like steak and want to improve upon that enjoyment–the drybagsteak folks seem to have found a way to do it at home.
Kami
May 25th, 2009 at 8:32 am
6I just finished trimming and steaking out a strip loin that I got at Costco to test these Drybags. Beautiful results! If you want to dry age at home (or for me, for catering small parties), drybagsteak.com has a product that will help you do it. Next time I think I’ll age some grass fed beef for a week or so just to see how that comes out. Nice thing is, I get to decide what I want to age unlike at my market where I have no choice but Meyer Natural (a great product, but–whew–expensive to buy already aged and trimmed!).
Tom R
July 10th, 2009 at 11:53 am
7I am in the process of dry aging a whole ribeye – can I put it on the rotisserie? Do I trim the fat off prior to putting it on the spit?
steaky
July 30th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
8STOP!!!
Your making me hungry…
RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI
Leave a reply
Categories
Recent Posts
Links
© LifeSpy 2009 - All rights reserved.