ISO help making dry-aged steaks at home

[Roger71]

Grilling season is in full swing here in Nebraska and I fired up my grill last weekend. I always buy dry aged steaks because I think they cook faster and more evenly and of course provide the best flavor and texture that only dry aged beef can have. They sell the DA ribeyes in Whole foods here for 21.99 a pound which is a bit pricey for me. I saw some food network show along time ago that demonstrated dry aging at home, but it looked pretty messy. So I was looking around online for a way to dry age in my fridge at home. I found these drybags that can be used to dry age whole ribeyes or striploins in a fridge. Has anyone tried to use them?

 

[GB]

Dry aging really can't be done at home safely. I saw someone ob foodtv do it once too (Alton Brown maybe), but it was really bad advice. Leave it to the professionals who have commercial equipment and are able to do it safely.

 

[Roger71]

Ok I tried a small piece of ribeye for 10 days and here is what it looked like. The steaks were great. Will try to do a bigger piece next time.

 

[FincaPerlitas]

Many people age their beef at home and are still alive to talk about it but you do so at your own risk, and the risk is real. Read the following and do your own research before trying it.

"Aging needs to be done at precise temperatures and humidity under controlled circumstances. The average family refrigerator just doesn’t have what it takes to properly age beef. It is very easy to get a good colony of bacteria going in that meat during the couple of weeks it takes to age a piece of beef.

"Worse still is this recipe for a trip to the hospital that’s been floating around the Internet. Take your prime or choice steaks, unwrap them, rinse with cold water, wrap in a clean kitchen towel and place on the coldest shelf of your refrigerator. Every day for 2 weeks take the steaks out and change the towel. At this point you are promised a fantastic steak, provided you live though the digestive process after eating it. What you need is the experience and knowledge to know when spoilage first starts. There is a definite change in smell and color of the meat so very close inspection is required during the aging process to insure that it doesn't go bad.

"The biggest risks to any piece of meat that you buy from the store and attempt to age are all the things that happened to that meat before you picked it up. Any exposure to bacteria during butchering, packing or shipping can make that meat unsafe to age."

Source: http://bbq.about.com/cs/beef/a/aa030301a.htm

 

[Scotch]

Check out this site:

Link: Drybag Steak.com - Dry Age Beef At Home | Dry-Aged Steak, Dry-Aging Beef, Umami

 

[attie]

Check out this site:

Link: Drybag Steak.com - Dry Age Beef At Home | Dry-Aged Steak, Dry-Aging Beef, Umami

Thanks Scotch, I was really puzzled with those steak photos, I age our beef cuts in my beer fridge that only gets opened after 5pm and is set at 2C, that's pretty important, the fridge must be below 4C constantly. I [wet] age our beef cuts for 3 to 4 months before cutting them in just the vacumn sealed bags.

Those bags look like the ants pants to me, but I don't think we can get them here.

 

[katmun]

It is better to dry age a strip loin then cut it into individual steaks.
You can do that at home in the fridge as long as it is cold enough and one of the keys is air circulation.

 

[Arky]

My grandfather owned a butcher shop/meat locker when I was a young teenager. He introduced me to the different cuts and ways of preserving hams, beef, wild game. As I recall, he would age beef upon request, but didn't normally like to because the temperature/humidity had to be closely controlled, and he said it was a real bother as well as risk. Aging, I think meant 1-3 months.