So the chefs on Youtube are telling me I need to “dry age” my steaks.
Basically, you salt the steaks, put them on a wire rack and throw it in the fridge, uncovered, for two or three days (Yes I know that’s not really dry aging) before cooking.
I really want to try this but I’m awful nervous about puting an uncovered steak in the fridge. I mean, doesn’t the fridge need to be sterilized?
I was thinking about getting a mini fridge (They’re only $100 on Amazon) and dedicating it for only dry aging the steaks. That way, I can assure a cleaner fridge more easily.
So what do you guys think? Buy the fridge? Or am I being too germ phobic?
Are you planning on cooking those steaks? Two days of microbial action at low temp is not going to do anything that cooking won’t take care of. However, I think having salt on the meat that long is going to toughen the meat, and in a typical fridge the meat is going to get very dry. They better be pretty thick steaks. Good luck with this. If you do get a separate fridge you might as well dry age some meat for real.
Are you just trying to bleed meat? Lots of meat needs some drying since they pack it with as much blood as possible. Steaks shouldn’t require two days.
I remember an episode of Alton Brown’s show Good Eats in which he dry-aged steak in the same refrigerator as other foods. He did have a shelf set aside for this, so if your refrigerator is stuffed, this won’t work. And I don’t think he salted the steak until just before it was to be cooked.
I toured the dry aging room of a very fancy steak place. It was a little cooler than room temperature but not anywhere near the inside of a refrigerator. No salt on those primals. One wall was lined with Himalayan pink salt bricks.
Yes the OP had the right idea. Leaving meat out and open in the fridge not only dries it (I wouldn’t say ages it), but will last longer then they if you keep it wrapped. As the outer surface dries so do any microbe’s chance of thriving. It is a great way to get some of the flavor of dry aging without the entire process plus prolonging the life in the fridge.
As for salt be careful, it will help dry it, however it will start turning the flavor to more corned beef, most of the time I don’t salt at this stage.
What you described is dry-brining steaks (which is good, doesn’t toughen the steaks, rather it tenderizes them by loosening the molecular bonds in the proteins). Overnight would be good for steaks up to 1 1/2 inches, longer for larger steaks or roasts. I’ll keep a full brisket like this for 3 days before smoking it.
Dry aging wouldn’t use salt. This also intensifies the flavor of the beef. Individual steaks should only be kept for a day or three, and you should trim the hard parts off before cooking. Large cuts, like whole tenderloins, can be dry ages longer. I used to do this. I’d wrap the steaks in cheesecloth and set them on a wire rack. Now I dry-brine.
I do keep a separate mini-fridge for this, because I also dry-brine chickens and turkeys (and dry out the skin overnight) and larger cuts of beef and pork, like pork butts. I keep this refridgerator just above freezing, about 34° F. It also doubles as a beer fridge between dry aging/dry brining.
If you’re just dry brining your steaks for a couple of days, (as opposed to dry aging for months), you won’t need a dedicated fridge. As long as you’re not rubbing other foods on the steak, there’s no worry of bacteria transmission.
And I don’t think you’ll want to dry brine longer than 24 hours. Of course there’s a matter of taste and the thickness of the steak to consider, but going over 24 hours tends to toughen the meat and make it saltier. Personally, I found 18-24 hours to be the sweet spot for a 1-1.5 inch steak.
Not what you’re asking, but since what you’re doing is more dry-brining than aging, this may be of interest:
Ever since I read this article about pseudo-aging steak using a combination of fish sauce and koji (a fungus used to ferment soy sauce and miso) I’ve wanted to try it. Dry-aging steak requires cutting off and discarding the outside. I paid for that steak, I want to eat all of it, dammit!