Umai vs. Koji Easter Throwdown

[jwtseng]

Alright folks...the die has been cast. On Easter Sunday, my 45-day old prime boneless ribeye sub primal will be coming out of its Umai dry aging bag. Timed with this debut, I will be cooking up a 3-day old bone-in ribeye that I inoculated with Koji aspergillus spores last night. This will be an interesting head to head comparison of two "dry-aging" alternatives: Umai "fake" dry bag aging vs. Koji "fake-fake" dry aging.

Here's a recent link on the Koji "fake-fake" technique:

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/how-to/article/dry-age-shortcut-koji

And a couple of "before" action shots:

Ribeye con Koji (Time Zero):

I'll be following up with pics of the Umai product as well as <hopefully> fully bloomed Ribeye con Koji!

 

[landarc]

Interesting.

 

[Bonewagon]

Looking forward to the results. op2:

 

[cowgirl]

Great! I'm looking forward to seeing what you find. Thanks for the post!

 

[DerHusker]

 

[DerHusker]

 

[cjtiger300]

Koji is pretty darn cool. My Japanese sister in law makes all kinds of sauces with it.

 

[jwtseng]

Happy Easter everyone! Broke open 45-day Umai dry aged boneless prime ribeye this morning. Everything looks good and smells wonderful. Here are some pics:

Top and bottom in the bag still:

Out of the bag finally:

First steak:

All steaked out:

Trimmed:

Finished and ready to cook or vacuum seal/freeze:

Here are some stats:

Original subprimal weight: 12.88 lbs
Final usable dry-aged weight: 8.21 lbs (63.7% yield)
Trimming waste weight: 2.71 lbs (saved for grinding into burger mix)
Moisture loss weight: 1.96 lbs (15.2% of original weight)

Total cost: $119.66
Per pound final dry-aged cost: $14.57/lb
Roughly half the cost of dry-aged ribeye at Whole Foods ($27.99/lb)
A tad over half the cost of fresh prime grade ribeye at Safeway ($23.99/lb)

 

[cowgirl]

I love the deep, rich color. Looks great!!