Dry Aged Beef ...at home?

[rkerlin]

I've heard that you can dry age your own steaks at home. Are there any forum members out there that have experimented with that? What kind of results have you gotten?

[grillafrommanilla]

I have dried aged ribeyes at home before and would recommend it. This is best done with large primal cuts. Best results i got came from taking a full 15 to 18 lb uncut rack of ribeyes(boneless or with bone works). Reasors just had a sale with these big hunks of meat and i almost bought one but just couldn't part with the cash. Here is how i did it and real butchers i knew in New York did it. Things you will need: 1. a pan to catch dripping with a rack that will elevate the meat from sitting on bottom of pan. ( a cooling rack for baking and a baking pan works. 2. lots of cheesecloth 3. a fridge to keep a nice even temp of 38 degrees. (you can use your regular fridge but the environment is constantly disturbed by opening for everyday use. I use a garage fridge for this) 4. Meat

1. Unwrap meat from cryovac pack and trim off outer fat depending on cut you choose.
2. Wrap about 3 layers of cheesecloth around the meat as if you were dressing a wound
3. Lay meat on elevated rack and with drip pan
4. for the first 3 or 4 days you will need to unwrap moist cheesecloth and redress the meat daily (after a few days less blood and moisture will be drawn out of the meat and you will only need to redress with cheesecloth every few days or so)
5. After 7 days you can start to cut off pieces of steak you want for cooking ( you will need to slice off and throw away crusted layer that doesn't look like its good. It will be like taking a thin slice of air hardened cheese from a block of cheese to get to the softer stuff)
6. After cutting off some steaks for cooking, you can redress the meat and put it back in the fridge for more aging and for cutting as needed.
7. You can go out to about 30 days with this aging process.

Hope you give it a try. It's not hard too do but it is timely and good meat in only comes out better. Worth spending the extra bucks on good ribeyes. I although i prefer to eat a bone in ribeye, it is much easier to age and cut a boneless ribeye. I hear the aging bags work but I've never seen real butchers use it. You need a meat with good internal fat marbling. Don't forget to trim the outer fat off the meat as it will prevent air from getting at the meat for aging.

[rkerlin]

Thanks Bobby. That's great info. I think I'll take a stab at it soon