I had my first “aged” steak a couple months ago. Let me tell you, it was a thing of beauty. The BEST steak I’ve ever had. It was aged a specific number of days. I’m curious…how is this done? How does old meat become faaaabulous meat? Can you screw this up and end up dead?
It’s actually quite easy to dry age steak at home, and the chances of screwing up and ending up dead are quite small. I’ve done it plenty of times.
I just unwrap the steaks and pat them dry with a paper towel. Put them on a rack set over a pan, stick 'em in a cold fridge for 4-5 days. Some people do them even longer, but it’s a matter of taste. Even a couple days improves the steaks IMO.
Here’s more than you ever want to know about aging beef.
Here’s a pretty interesting article about the process.
There’s a good explanation here: http://www.goodcooking.com/steak/dry_aging.htm
Basically, it’s about allowing enzymes to start breaking down the tissue of the meat. And I wouldn’t bother trying to do this at home - much easier to find a decent butcher to buy it from.
It’s the same principle as “hanging” freshly killed game before cooking. Not to put too fine a point on it, you’re allowing the raw meat to partially rot, which makes the fibers more tender and permits the growth of microorganisms that alter the flavor.
Sure, you could in theory overdo this process to the point where the rotted meat was actually unsafe to eat, but it would probably take quite a while and you’d probably notice it (unless you were aging/cooking it in unhygienic conditions).
Aged beef,or,as it is somtimes called,“Hung” beef-----------begins several narural processes once it it no longer a meadow munching machine.
One of these is the development of tenderizing enzymes.
The most common mistake of steak purchase is to select those cuts which are “bright red”--------which color is often created by the injection of gases which hold that bright redness which the public,in general,equates with freshness.
When choosing a steak,or any other cut for that matter,one should go for the
meat which is beginning to show a hint of Brown.
That’s the indication that the meat has been naturally tenderized and is ready for the pan----------or grill----------or oven-----or even the kitchen nuke device.
This might even mean buying it on it’s “sell-by” date.
And here’s a trade secret-------------Most butchers[a fast fading breed] keep a special side of beef on a hook in the reefer for their own supply.
To a meat cutter, the term,“well hung” has nothing to do with the more common applications!
But it sure lifts a meal several heights above mere BLAH.
EZ
Very interesting articles. They don’t say much about ageing steaks once they’ve been cut off the carcass, but it looks like I can do it (for a shorter length of time). If this works out, I’ll never eat chicken again! I swear!
Now that’s a butcher I’ve got to make friends with!!! mmm… reefer & beef 
On a more serious note, what all the others (including Ezstrete) said is right on.
The aging process should be done at very low temperatures, as noted in the links above.
This is probably the right thread to ask if I made a mistake in throwing out $20 worth of steaks that looked perfectly fine on top, but when I turned them over, there were areas on them that were brownish green. I assumed this meant the meat was going rancid. Was I wrong?
I’ve done that too. The visual was too ooogy for me. I hope a properly-aged steak doesn’t look like that.
The right kind of brown is when the meat is on a rack, so air is able to circulate. Green is bad, it comes from no air circulation.
I give these types of things the nose test. If I can’t get it close enough to my nose to eat it because it’s stinky, I throw it out.
Yeah, I did the smell test on the greenish areas, and it didn’t smell right. Bye bye steak dinner, bye bye twenty bucks.
Yup, properly aged steak has a very mild, clean smell. And like NurseCarmen pointed out, a rack is pretty much essential for drying beef.
One of the links said that steaks can’t be dry-aged, but that I’d have to buy the whole subprimal, which I’m not averse to doing except, damn, a rib roast is a LOT of steaks in eat in 21 days, so no… I’d rather just try to dry-age a steak. Any advice contrary to the advice not to attempt it with a steak? If I put a cooling rack in the fridge to allow circulation and a couple of delmonicos on the cooling rack (you know, those things for cookies and so on)… would I be in for some pleasantness?
I’ve also heard that simple dehydration is also a factor. As the steak is aged, it loses water but not any flavor compunds. So the flavor becomes more concentrated.
To properly dry age a large chunk of beef requires stuff the average homeowner does not own. The fridge that they use to dry age is humidity controlled, not just cold. If you have a Whole Foods market nearby you go check out their dry age case. The cuts of meat in there look almost like jerkey. This is what happens if you leave the meat exposed for 20-28 days.
If one the other hand, you just want to dry age a steak for a couple of days, or maybe a rib roast, that you can do in your home fridge.
I think you will find that a couple of days of “dry aging” in your fridge is more about water loss concentrating flavors than it is about enzyme action. At least that is what Alton Brown said in his show about prime rib.
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[hijack]Balthisar did you make it through black Monday OK? Job change or status quo?[/Hijack]
It’s not rot that makes it taste good, with rot defined by being consumed by microorganisms but the natural breakdown of the cells and release of enzimes in the meat, which breaks down the fibers. Microorganism growth usually will happen on the surface of dry aged beef and has to be cut away and discarded.
Yup, okay here – any effect on your part of the organization?