TR: Dry Aged Beef

[deadheadskier]

So for those of you who peruse the 'What's for dinner thread' a couple of weeks back I had talked a bit about dry aging some beef, NY Strip to be specific. If this is post whoring, well so be it, dock my post count :lol:, but because this was much more than a simple dinner, I thought it worthy of my own thread.

Anyways, this was my first go at dry aging beef. I had initially planned on going 28 days with it, but I got hungry to try it, so the dry aging ended at 14 days :lol: 14 days is fairly young for dry aged beef. Most high end steak houses that serve it dry age their beef anywhere from 21 to 65 days

So, I've photo documented the process and will share with you all

 

[deadheadskier]

2 days aged

When most steak houses dry age beef, they typically do so with either a NY Strip or Ribeye. Usually they start with the full side of beef; 13ish pounds for a strip, 18ish for a Ribeye. I had a whole NY Strip side, but needed to utilize 11 pounds of it for other purposes.

So, I started out with about a 3 pound center cut piece. This is day 2 and it almost looks like a normal hunk of beef, except a bit more red. The first five days consisted of wrapping the hunk of beef with a basic white linen towel and leaving it in my fridge at 35 degrees. The towels were changed twice daily as they became blood soaked.

 

[deadheadskier]

Day 10

As the beef starts to age, it loses water/blood weight, reduces in size and develops a crust around it. It gets exceedingly darker in color and fat locations start to solidify and almost become moldy, which would be the white specks in this picture.

 

[deadheadskier]

Day 14

The beef is becoming even more gnarly black and white spotted. This was today when I pulled the plug. I simply couldn't wait to try my first go at dry aging :lol:

The exterior is completely crusted and almost feels like wood to the touch. The beef had started to give off an almost blue cheese like funk smell. It's hard to imagine that this is even edible. Notice from first picture, to second to this how much smaller the 'eye' or dominant meat center area has shrunk.

 

[deadheadskier]

Trimmed beef

As I said, it's hard to imagine that the meat is even edible looking at it's previous condition. The reality is that the crust that forms around the beef completely preserves the inside. What the process does as the beef shrinks is condense the flavors and juices into a smaller portion. That portion becomes denser, yet more tender at the same time. I started with a 3 pound piece. The cut below is roughly 18 ounces trimmed, where as had I done nothing, I probably would've gotten (3) 12 ounce steaks out of the initial piece. That's a pretty horrendous yield of about 35 %, but if you use a whole side, the loss is much less.

Looks like a normal and safe piece of meat to eat doesn't it? It is

 

[deadheadskier]

I split the piece in two and through it one the grill for the lady and I. They almost look like filet mignon and the dry aging process made the beef more tender than filet yet more flavorful than a rib eye

 

[deadheadskier]

After grilling to medium rare I let the beef rest for about five minutes. Many steakhouses top their dry aged beef withe a roguefort (sp) butter, which is a very nice blue cheese infused butter. No roquefort to be found at the store today, so I simply finished the pieces real quick under the broiler with some cabot salted butter and crumbled danish blue on the top. The lady started a new diet today, so she opted out on the blue cheese.

 

[deadheadskier]

End result?

I eat this same brand of beef pretty often and dry aging for 14 days yielded a finished product almost twice as flavorful and far more tender than it normally would be. It was pretty darn good, but not as could as it can be. The grading for dry aging has to be at least choice. It's the interior marbling under the dry age crust that really develops the awesome flavor. Normally this particularly beef I had on hand is choice plus, which is just below prime, but this particularly hunk was definitely barely choice; bad cows happen.

I look forward to trying the process again, only next time with a choice plus or prime grade hunk of beef and I'll let it go for 45 days.

It was a lot of fun to research and try. Dry aged beef is expensive due to the initial high quality needed to do it; the shrinkage during the process and the loss of weight to trimming the crust at the end, but most importantly the time it takes to monitor and do it well.

So, if you ever see dry aged beef on a menu somewhere. What you just witnessed is what the chef has done. If you like beef, good dry aged is an incredible experience. Less than 1% of people in the country ever try it.

 

[Hawkshot99]

Looks good but way too much effort for me. I take it right out of the package and cook it. and the cheap stuff too, cause I'm cheap.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

nice report...wow...so you just get rid of the crust??

 

[Grassi21]

you are my idol. that looks delicious.

 

[hardline]

meat stoke. cooool

 

[deadheadskier]

nice report...wow...so you just get rid of the crust??

Oh most certainly, it's as hard as wood and moldy. My lady looked at it and couldn't believe that we were going to eat this as it got more dank over the two weeks.

....but I might not discard it next time.

I'm not a huge beef jerky fan, but I have a feeling the process in curing it isn't all that different. Probably just requires a salt bath over it. I'll have to do some research.

 

[snowmonster]

Thanks for the TR. I once dry aged beef (ribeye) for 2 weeks in the fridge. My source was, of all things, Maxim magazine! Li'l snowmonster was really skeptical about my "science experiment." Turned out really well though. I grilled the steak medium rare but just seasoned it with salt and pepper. Highly recommended.

 

[Moe Ghoul]

Nicely done. I'll give that a try the next time I shop for meat. Is there something besides linen that can be used for the first five days? Bar mops? cheesecloth?

 

[deadheadskier]

Looks good but way too much effort for me. I take it right out of the package and cook it. and the cheap stuff too, cause I'm cheap.

Trust me, that's pretty much what I do to 99% of the time. Like I said, this is my first go at dry aging beef.

My job is selling this stuff to fine dining restaurant chefs though and there's only so much bull shitting you can do in this job. It would be like you trying to sell Bodie Miller skis; you need to know wtf you're talking about. Only way to know is to try it and do it.

 

[deadheadskier]

Nicely done. I'll give that a try the next time I shop for meat. Is there something besides linen that can be used for the first five days? Bar mops? cheesecloth?

I actually have read cheese cloth is commonly used. From what I've read and whom I've talked to, some people keep it wrapped and changing the clothes the whole time; others disagree. After 5ish days I didn't see the point; the cloth had drawn out all the blood by that point.

 

[Moe Ghoul]

I actually have read cheese cloth is commonly used. From what I've read and whom I've talked to, some people keep it wrapped and changing the clothes the whole time; others disagree. After 5ish days I didn't see the point; the cloth had drawn out all the blood by that point.

We go to Gallagher's in NYC occasionally if we're nostalgic for the old school steakhouse experience. I never recall seeing the meat wrapped or covered.

http://www.gallaghersnysteakhouse.com/

 

[deadheadskier]

We go to Gallagher's in NYC occasionally if we're nostalgic for the old school steakhouse experience. I never recall seeing the meat wrapped or covered.

http://www.gallaghersnysteakhouse.com/

Try Tom Collichio's Craftsteak next time you're in the city. He does a heckuva job dry aging beef.

http://www.craftrestaurant.com/cs_ny_menu.html

Any place that I've been too that dry ages beef doesn't show the process to the customers. It's commonplace to have a meat cooler to pick your beef from, but the dry aging is usually done behind the scenes. I'm fairly certain not having direct outside light hit the meat is important as well.

Also, just look at my 14 day dry aged hunk prior to trimming it; it looks completely nasty and would probably scare most people away.

 

[snoseek]

Good meat stoke! It's been a while since I've cooked or eaten true dry aged beef but I will almost always air dry a singlesteak in the fridge for a day or two before cooking. not really the same but it does concentrate the flavor just a bit.

How did the flavor come out. I have seen plenty of people turned off by the flavor of dry-aged beef-it would always break my heart when it got sent back. I'm craving sirloin now.