Big A$$ Pieces of Meat... my first dry aging experiment

[nucornhusker]

I personally would have just wet-aged them, but I'll be interested to see how these turn out.

[CharredApron]

Have you ever tried the dry aged vacu-suck bags? Good luck and keep posting I am wanting to do this too!
Jed

[Sean "Puffy" Coals]

Originally Posted by Hometruckin

Have you ever tried the dry aged vacu-suck bags? Good luck and keep posting I am wanting to do this too!
Jed

I looked into them- they're $20 + shipping for 4 measly bags. I had to choose between the bags or the meat...

[CharredApron]

Heard that! That's why I haven't bought them. I am going to try them. I don't have a dedicated dry age fridge. I was looking into building one but I may be moving and can't bring the fridge with me to South America cause everything down there is 220 volt

[Sean "Puffy" Coals]

Yesterday was day 8- time to flip, rotate and swap. Here's what they like so far.





They don't seem to have shrunk very much yet, but they sort of feel like water balloons- soft inside but with a tough shell.

I will definitely be upgrading my fridge before I attempt to do any more aging- there just doesn't seem to be enough space for the air to circulate inside and the coil, if you want to call it that drips condensation every now and then.

There's a layer of Ice about a half inch or 5/8 this accumulated on the coil already. Since the door has been closed, I figure this is from the moisture coming out of the meat.

I'll post more pics next week when I flip and rotate again.

Thanks for looking!

[legendaryhog]

How are you planning on cooking these eventually? I have never dry aged, but wouldn't you get more air around it and better aging if you divided these into your final product (assuming you are not going to cook the whole joint?).

Just askin.

[Sean "Puffy" Coals]

Originally Posted by legendaryhog

How are you planning on cooking these eventually? I have never dry aged, but wouldn't you get more air around it and better aging if you divided these into your final product (assuming you are not going to cook the whole joint?).

Just askin.

I thought about that, the only problem is that the more you cut it up, the more you end up having to trim off. The whole outer surface will be decayed at the end of the process and need to be removed before I can cut them into steaks.

Not only that, but the more pieces I have the more space I need to spread them out. So that would only add to the problem.

[aawa]

Nice looking experiment

I got the Umai Dry Age Bags sampler kit for christmas. I have done a choice NY strip subprimal at 45 days and a choice ribeye subprimal at 40 days. Both turned out great. The NY strip is gone but I have 7 1.5in ribeyes waiting to be eatten sometime (I already did up 5 of them)

I would recommend the Umai Dry Age Bags to anybody that does not have an extra fridge that they can dedicate to dry aging meat. Just vacuum seal the meat in the bag, throw it on a cooling rack and place it on a sheet pan. There is little to no drippage, and no drippage at all after 3 days. No wierd smells in the fridge or on the meat. And the quality of product rocks.

[Thermal Mass]

Thanks for sharing this, especially in such detail. I recall your previous thread where you discussed your fridge set up. I have wanted to really try it.
Tuned in!

[smokeyy]

I just saw this post and don't really want to ruin your day, but looking at the pictures I don't think you have a ribeye what you have is a chuckroll,they call certain roasts on the chuck a 7-bone roast.
here is a u tube of a whole ribeye to give you a good look at what one looks like see how it has that large piece of fat (the tail) on the one side running the length of meat yours does not have that even if it was trimmed before they packaged it, it would not be that wide

[smokeyy]

here is a video showing a whole ribeye

How to Trim Ribeye - YouTube

[Sean "Puffy" Coals]

Hurmmmm. Maybe the box was mislabeled? It did say ribeye on it, that i know for sure.

The cryo said product of australia on it- anyone know if they cut/name theirs different?

Either way, it's gonna make some good steaks once it's done aging. Truth will come out when I slice it, I guess.

[PanamaExpat]

Was happy to see a progress report.... Hope it all turns out as you planned. Looking forwards to the end result.

[Haastyle]

You need to change out your salt. You're looking to lose at least 10% of your meat's water weight. 2lb of salt is not going to suck all of that up. Replace what you have in there with a lot more salt in a shallow pan. I keep my fridge at 35 when I do it. Never have gone longer than 25 days. FYI. I am sure you can, I just am not going to play that game.

[Sean "Puffy" Coals]

OK, 14 days in- they don't look any different. Still have that jerky kind of look and texture. The main thing I noticed was how much frost had accumulated around the freezer coil.





I think it's pretty impressive considering the door has been shut pretty much the entire 2 weeks and the meat is all that's in there.

No signs of mold or other funkiness. The salt pan seems to be doing its job.

Just 1 more week to go!

Thanks for lookin!