The Dry Aging Beef thread

Figured that it would best to make one thread dedicated to dry aging beef. Feel free to add to, post question, etc. For those looking for a solid primer, here you go: How to Dry Age Beef

Here is my setup (old refrigerator that keeps the air 34-37, wire racks, sheet tray with rock salt, and a small 4" fan. I sanitized and dryer the fridge out prior to the beef going in. We took advantage of a massive Prime beef sale at costco, and left the beef untrimmed (for now), and dryer the meat as best I can with paper towels. Put in and wait - checking every few days, moving the fan, etc.



Will update.
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And here we are at day 9…
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did you weigh the meat prior? be curious to see the loss over 30 days.

JoeD,

Hard to tell from your photos, is that a boneless rib roast (NAMP 110 or 112 or 112A)? Since Kenji recommends bone-in hunks, I sourced a whole, bone-in rib (107) and followed the directions in Kenji’s book, Food Lab, for 45 days. I’m using a small, converted wine cooler which I normally use for dry-curing. Well worth the effort.

I’m very curious about your results if you are indeed using boneless roasts since they are so much easier for me to find. Thanks.

Those are boneless USDA Prime strips loins thaat were on super sale two weeks ago.

Bill A- good eye. There is one ribeye in there that was also grabbed at Costco at the same time, though not on sale (still $9.79/lb for prime). I figured try the 110/112 cut to see how it turns out, not sure which one this qualifies as. Would prefer the bone-in/107, will plan to do one soon with good results here.

yaacov- yes, I have the original weights so I was just going to figure the ‘burdened’ $/lb. I will get more data driven in future endeavors.

Cheers!

Please report in detail. I’d sure like to use this cut, but I’m concerned the higher surface area/volume ratio is less than optimal.

Dang. You committed for your first go. I would be scared to go with $600 worth of product on attempt one. How goes it?

Anyone have thoughts on what I did wrong?

  1. Started with a 13 pound Costco boneless prime striploin. Took it out of the bag, dried it, put it on a roasting rack.

  2. Took an oven pan, filled it with coarse salt, put the rack on the pan, and put it in an empty refrigerator drawer. I set it for 34 degrees, think it ran a little hot, maybe 35-37.

  3. put a fan in the drawer, and left it alone for 40 days (except to change the batteries in the fan every 3 days)

When I took it out, it looked ‘aged’, and smelled lightly like good blue cheese (all good things). I then cut it into steaks. The ‘black’ ran way, way into the steak. By cutting away the ‘black’ part, I lost maybe half of the remaining of each steak. So I started with 13lbs, lost some to water weight loss, and then half again to removing ‘black’, and left with maybe 5-6 lbs.

So what did I do wrong?

Just a guess, but possibly it had some jaccard needle tenderizing that allowed the aging to migrate deep into the primal. I have never had more than a quarter to half inch of the dark, leathery jerky to be removed.

sounds like your humidity was way too low to start

and the fan just made it worse.

and you started with a costco steak.

Costco is the Bomb!!!

Everything on my end looks/smells fine at the 17 day mark. My humidity levels have been 50-70%. Also, go big or go home!

No, no and no.

So I thought the point of this whole thing is to suck water out of the beef? All fridges are ‘low humidity’, and that’s what the salt does, grab more humidity out of the air? If Costco does the ‘needle tenderizing’ with all their prime loins, does that mean that you can’t use the loins to do dry aging? I don’t think I’ll try again this way as it was very disappointing to wait 40 days and lose 1/2 the meat!

How dare you question the know it all of all! [snort.gif]

I have probably portioned up 15 or so ribeye, strip and tenderloin primals from Costco and Sams. I have never noticed anything that looks like needlework. I have noticed it on individual steaks at Wal-Mart and other grocery stores, usually on Select grade meat. Do you have any pictures to share? I would like to dry age beef at home but I lack a spare fridge for it. I have done wet aging in a large cooler for several weeks. Not sure if it made an improvement, didn’t hurt it.

Isn’t it simply that the meat was already too much trimmed (no fatty cap to protect the meat underneath)?

Alain

I found a whole prime NY strip roast at costco for 6.99 per pound this week. At that price, I figured it is minimal risk for my first attempt at dry aging. I have an empty mini fridge that I am dedicating to this purpose. I’m excited to see how it turns out.

Update:

I pulled the first NYS at the day 35 mark. It started as the smallest loin, and spent the most time on the top shelf of my fridge, getting direct airflow from the fan. The loss on this was close to 50% of its weight. The texture of the 35 day was filet-like, but it was rather dry, and the flavor didn’t evolve into what I was looking for. A slightly disappointing start. I will be getting a timer for my fan to cylce on/off moving forward. I think this loin was just too dry from the fan, it turned kind of jerky like.

Waited another week and cut up 1 NYS and 1 RibEye at the 42 day mark. These looked larger than the previous NY and it showed when we cut into them. They were absolutely delicious - the texture was amazing, and the flavor definitely was moving in that nutty/cheesy direction. I would estimate a 35% loss compared to its original weight after removing the desiccated sections. Most agreed that it was worth repeating with this type of result. Here is after a reverse sear on the BGE, ribeye on top, NYS closest to bottom:

One more NYS will go this week, and will pull around the 50 day mark.