I picked up a couple aged 1½” NY Strips from Pino’s Meat Market yesterday. I’d normally cook them, but my in-laws are coming. He likes his steak well done. I trust you understand.
So I’m not cooking them this weekend. How long can they stay in the refrigerator without risking ill-effects? They’re in a 37-degree refrigerator. Another week? A few days?
Second, I may not want to cook both the same night. If I don’t, and if I can’t cook them before they turn, my other option is vacuum sealing and freezing one. What kind of damage am I doing there? Enough that I might as well cook them well done? Or only minimal damage?
FTR, I’m going to cook them with a flame thrower. Given their thickness, I may finish them in an oven. Maybe.
I glimpsed at the Meat Market link, and maybe you should ask those guys. I couldn’t say what’s too long to refrigerate, but it looks like you bought from some real pro’s.
Aiko.
I was all set to answer this, until I looked at the link. Yeah, call them and ask what to do with them. Or dis-invite the in-laws. Yeah, that second one, that’s what I’d do.
Three to four days is about as long as I like to leave raw meat in the fridge, but you should be able to go a little more. Just wrap it loosely in cheesecloth, paper towels, or butcher’s paper and keep them on a wire rack. The idea is to not have them sit in their juices. Change the wrapping when it gets wet. You’re basically kind of doing a mini dry aging process here.
I have to say, you are a very good and generous son-in-law to buy prime steak knowing it’s going to be cooked well.
If it’s that long, yeah, I’d play it safe and freeze. I have no problem with frozen meat. Something commercially frozen quickly vs frozen in a home freezer is going to be slightly better, but I really don’t think twice about freezing steak. I’d prefer to eat prime meat from the butcher without freezing it, but I’ve done it before and you’re not, IMHO, ruining it or anything.
I’d say freeze it. Your refrigerator is not an ideal dry aging environment, and steaks aren’t the ideal form for meat to be dry aged. You’d be freezing for just a few days, so the effect will be minimal. And I’ll remind you that a steer sacrificed it’s life to produce that prime meat, it would be a grave injustice to end up throwing away that meat.
It’s not ideal, but both Cook’s Illustrated and Alton Brown seem to think it’s possible and does good things for the meat. I’ve never done it myself; I prefer to leave dry-aging to the professionals. And if the meat is already dry-aged, I’m not sure a couple more days in the fridge are going to do much, if anything, to it. Not sure if the OP’s meat is dry-aged already or not.
So with limited sadness I sealed them in vacuum bags and put them in the freezer.
What does freezing meat do to flavour/texture? Does the length of time frozen make a difference? The temperature? Thawing method?
The part I don’t get about keeping them in the fridge is the difference between the butcher dry ageing them and storing them in a fridge. Do butchers age meat and sell them on the last possible day? Or is dry ageing a specialized process such that its conditions aren’t reproduceable in a home?
ETA: Didn’t see pulykamell’s post. Yes, the steaks were aged by the butcher. I’ve seen Cook’s Illustrated and Brown talk about home-ageing, but since I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it when I saw them it didn’t sink that deep.
I’m ready to do real dry aging sometime. I have a refrigerator I can keep empty for it. My plan is to use a temperature controller, install a fan inside the fridge to maintain air circulation, and a container of water to maintain humidity. But I don’t think steak will work that well, too much surface area, not enough fat covering. If I can find a temperature controller that will cover the range for both that and sous vide I’ll be on it in a minute. But a regular refrigerator can easily be too dry and pick up unwanted smells and bacteria from other things in there. I may be going overboard though. I know restaurant owners that dry age in their walk-ins without much special attention.
Butchers dry age large pieces of fatty meat, like this. The aging process creates a “crust” of mold on the outside of the meat which must be cut off before the meat is sliced into steaks. Unless you’ve purchased a side of beef and own a walk-in cooler, you’re going to have difficulty reproducing the process at home.
Why don’t you get a temperature controller like this one? According to the manual, it has a setpoint range of -34C to 100C. You might want to double check to see if this means what I think it means, but it looks like something that would work, no?
There’s also the Johnson A419, which has the same range (same company, too, as above), and I’ve found references to it both on sous viding and homebrewing (for chilling control) websites, so that should certainly cover it.
ETA: Actually, that’s exactly the same temperature control as linked to before. So look into it. Looks like it covers your territory.
That’s very similar to one I used to have, it’s just digital now. And I picked it up at home brewery supply shop. I only used it for refrigeration, so I didn’t remember what the upper range was.
That’s very similar to one I used to have, it’s just digital now. And I picked it up at home brewery supply shop. I only used it for refrigeration, so I didn’t remember what the upper range was.
Darn it. I keep forgetting that closing quotation mark. There’s another message board I frequent that requires omitting the quotes after the “url=” tag. Lately, I’ve been finding myself putting one of the quotes in and leaving the other out, as if my brain wants to split the difference.
My meat comes from the farm vacuum sealed and frozen. Its good for about a year. Home systems aren’t quite as good, but you should have many months before there’s any loss of quality problem.
This assumes the meat has never been frozen before.
ETA: I thaw under cold running water or in the fridge overnight if I remember.
