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Topic: Is a mini fridge ok to use?
My wife is giving me the evil eye about using the kitchen fridge, I have a mini fridge, doesn’t have a freezer compartment. Can I use it to use the dry bags? :angry:
Topic: 17 pound hunk of Ribeye
OK, first try at dry aging experiment, concluded. I did a 28 day dry age in my basement fridge. Followed videos for clean transfer to umai bag, massaged well as I vacuum sealed, placed on a rack in my fridge, which seems to vary between 35 to 38 Fahrenheit. Huminidy levels rough out to unmeasurable, to lo 20’s. Difficult to find an analog thermometer that worked well. Ended up using a digital therm, humidity gauge, I use to use for cigar box, and it was much more accurate. Fridge was rarely opened. I did have one problem. A power failure at about two weeks in, from bad storm, resulted in about 13 hours of outage. I was worried enough to consider stopping experiment, and having one hell of a neighborhood cook-out. Instead, power returned, I never even looked to see what temps did during outage, just kept going.
Success, meat had condensed and darkened, outside was a dry bark. Removed bark, Steaked into 14 pieces, cooked two up quickly on the grill. The main improvement I immediately detected was tenderness. The meat was firm but knife went threw with hardly any push. Flavor was not overly beefy, just real good. Next batch I try, I’ll probably go for 45 days. Happy and satisfied with my first attempt, will definitely do again. Ribeye bought at Costco. Going for homemade Pepperoni next.Sorry for the repeat questions on sealing, but my concern is about food safety.
I got my first bag kit and sealer, I ruined one of the large bags trying to seal a strip loin, but eventually got it on bag 2. So when I moved on to a boneless rib roast i only had the smaller bags. I cut the rib into three parts and sealed three smaller pieces. One of them sealed just fine, but the other two came completely loose after being in the fridge for 2 days. The bag did not bond at all on the fat side and minimally on the meat side only I think because of sitting on the rack. There is probably less than 50% bond. Was out of large bags, not sure what to do so I left it alone.
I am now into day 30. The strip loin that took the second large bag is aging nicely. The two rib bags that did not seal look about the same as the one that did. Temp has been between 33-38 F the whole time.
Having done some research before using the bags, I see that a lot of people are dry aging with no bags at all. I preferred not to go this route as your product looked “safer” to me. Again the product is in the bags just no adhesion whatsoever. I see that you have been generally telling people that this type of product is not safe, but given the fact that most dry aged product does not use bags, I am questioning you a bit. Especially if I were to trim off a lot of excess, I would think it would be safer don’t you? Trimming more is not ideal, but better than trashing $100 worth of meat?
Don’t get me wrong I still want to use your bags, just need some advice.
Topic: Dry Aging Steak Experiments
I had been using the drybags for about 9 months and I absolutely love it. I figure I had done around 10 subprimals already. Over the weekend I started two Wagyu NY subprimals from Snake River Farms, and I came here to see if there are any time recommendations. Very interesting to see someone else doing it in the “mad scientist” thread! After seeing others post their experience, I figure I will post my own experience as well.
My steak tasting party is now legendary among my circle of friends. So far I have aged prime grade (from Costco) subprimals for 15 / 21 / 28 / 35 / 42 / 49 / 63 days. That’s 7 steaks. Before serving the aged beef, I will start with unaged grain fed and unaged grass fed to set a baseline. So that’s a total of 9 steaks for the tasting party.
I have done about 6 of these parties. The consensus favorite is 28 / 35 days – that seems to be the balance between tenderness and flavor that most people enjoy. I have some friends who love the umai flavor and like the 63 days the best. On the other hand I have friends who enjoy a more traditional “chewy” texture with just a touch of umai, and they like the 15 days. My personal favorite so far are the 42 and 49 days.
“Harvesting” the subrprimals used to take a long time, but now I have got it down. I cut the subprimal down to steaks and trim after because 1) I can cut out more of the fat cap this way, and 2) I have better control in cutting away the rind and preserving the good meat to minimize loss. I cut them down into 3 different sizes: 4 – 5 oz for tasting parties, 9 – 10 oz for personal consumption, and 21 – 24 oz for bone in chops. After trimming the steaks, I vacuum seal them with food saver bags. Then I freeze the steaks with dry ice with the idea that a quick deep freeze will minimize damage to the muscle fibers during the freeze process. Due to the expenses with dry ice, I usually time my harvest so I can do 2 – 3 subprimals at a time.
I cook my steaks sous vide (water bath) at 131F for 1 – 3 hours depending on thickness, then a quick sear for the finishing texture (crust). For the thin tasting size steaks, 30 seconds each side. For the larger ones, 45 seconds to a minute each side. This method had never failed me.
On my new experiment, the Wagyu subprimals. I cut out three unaged Wagyu steaks before bagging the rest for aging. Over the weekend I did a tasting with the unaged Wagyu steak against unaged / 28 / 42 / 49 prime grade NY. The unaged Wagyu was more tender than the prime, but it wasn’t even close to the aged steaks. The Wagyu was less tender than any of the aged steaks, and it also had no umai flavor.
I now have three subprimals in my fridge – a prime NY going for 100 days, a Wagyu NY going for 49 days, and a Wagyu NY going for 100 days. I picked 49 and 100 days for the Wagyu because that’s how long Thomas Keller age them for his French Laundry and Per Se restaurants.
I plan on doing three more over the next month or two – a prime NY for 77 days, and two Wagyu Rib Eyes with time TBD. I am torn between two options – doing them for 49 / 100 days so I can compare the cuts on the same length of aging, or doing them for say 28 / 63 days so I can compare different lengths of aging.