Make Your Own Dry Age Beef Fridge

Paul is a barbecue enthusiast. He is currently grilling and smoking on a Komodo Kamado Ultimate 23.

Two whole primal cuts of beef aging. — 2 whole cardinal cuts of beef aging.

Why Dry-Age Beefiness?

I'm a big fan of the rich scent and flavor of dry-aged beef. It has a singled-out, almost-cheese-like flavor; a funky, deep smell; and is tender like no other steak. The problem is that it'due south so damn expensive. I picked up two USDA Prime os-in rib eyes that were aged over 40 days, and it cost $26 per pound. Without the os, it's $32 per pound, and the leaner New York strips are $24 per pound. For my family of five, it easily tops $100 to buy dry-aged steaks for a bbq dinner. So, I came home and told my wife that I love dry out-aged beef, but we can't beget it, then I demand to figure out how to brand it myself.

After Forty Hours of Research Here Is What Y'all Need to Dry-Age at Home

First, I went to my butcher and asked how to do it. I got some pretty basic instructions.

Get a mini fridge with racks big enough to hold a very big cut of beef—up to 20 lbs.
Put a fan it it and set up it on low.
Get a UV-C light to impale leaner in the fridge.
Get a gunny sack and fill with fibroid salt to place in the lesser of the refrigerator.
Get a Hydrometer to measure out the humidity. Add a tray of water to get the humidity to 60-80%.
Place a big cut of rib middle or New York strip on wire racks.
Await at least 40 days.

These guys are experts, and I'thousand aiming for beefiness that tastes like theirs. But it seemed a scrap intimidating to go it all setup to produce a dry out-crumbling environs like this.

This led me to the next step in my inquiry process. Should I buy a refrigerator designed to dry-age meat? I looked extensively at The Steakager. The Steakager does a fine job by all accounts, merely it has two major limitations:

It toll $250 for the device.
It won't agree an entire sub-central cut of beef.

I also looked at a German-made Steak Locker. This $i,500 device is the full Cadillac of dry-aging fridges. Information technology has all the equipment built-in, and every review I found touted information technology for producing neat steak, decision-making pungent smells, and cleaning. The two issues for me are the price tag and time it takes to get delivered.

And so, I was back to researching options and thinking through if I wanted to invest the fourth dimension and money to do dry aging at home.

Hither is the basic and minimal list of equipment to dry-age at home

Refrigerator
Wire-raised racks
Fan

Humidity and Bacteria

I had two major questions. How important is controlling the humidity and the leaner to the process? As my research continued, I found folks had gone to great lengths to control the humidity in a fridge that is nigh impossible to do without the feature congenital-in, which is usually only available in commercial refrigerators. The second thing I learned well-nigh the impact of humidity is that during the dry-aging process, the outer layer of the meat dries and seals. This process traps the remaining moisture inside the meat. So, the humidity doesn't play a significant role in developing the flavor or preserving the meat. Numerous forums study outstanding results with dry-aging at home with Hygrometer readings of 30% to over 80%. Some people written report fantastic results when they constantly open up and shut the frig and humidity varies wildly. Net net, I decided humidity doesn't matter for dry-crumbling.

I struggled more with the effect of bacteria and if I needed a UV-C low-cal. In one case once again I went to numerous forums and blogs and I found people reporting great results with and without, then I kept asking if it really mattered. I decided it couldn't hurt, then I went to Amazon to get ane shipped overnight, but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. I went to my local hardware store and once once more I couldn't detect what I wanted, so I decided the steak gods were telling me I didn't need it. So, I decided to proceed without a calorie-free.

My Very Simple Dry Aging Setup

Then, I decided to head to Costco to buy a $150 mini frig. When I constitute the fridge, information technology was on a high shelf, so I couldn't get it downward. That's when I decided to use my extra fridge in the garage. Hither's my setup.

Medium-sized frig with grated racks (apply raised racks if your refrigerator has solid shelves)
Ii aluminum pans with optional salt placed on the bottom to catch drippings (Optional)
House fan

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What to Dry-Age Beginning

Since I was at Costco, I decided to buy a big New York strip and a big prime rib. Both were USDA Choice that cost $v.99 and $6.99 per pound. I went with Selection considering it's less expensive than Prime number and I'chiliad not sure that there is a huge divergence in quality betwixt the two.

I placed both pieces on the rack, switched the fan on low, and started the process.

How Long Should Beef Age?

The entire bespeak of dry-aging is to create the almost tender and flavorful steak. The fan circulates air effectually the beef, the outer layer seals in the juices, and then the enzymes in the beef go to work slowly breaking downwardly the meat to arrive tender and producing the robust aroma and flavor.

In one case again, I poured over blogs, gustation tested several steaks, plus relied on my experience.

ane-21 days. Why bother. There is little to no change in flavor. If the steak is anile 21 days, it only has a pocket-sized hint of extra season.
22-28 days. Mild to medium increases in flavour. I'd still consider it hardly worth the time and trouble.
29-45 days. Robust flavor profile develops. In that location is a significant divergence betwixt day 29 and 45. Each day information technology gets more robust.
46-ninety. Aye, it keeps getting richer and funkier. My mother said it tasted rotten. I disagreed, but information technology was funkier than I liked at 65 days.

Depending on personal preference, I'd suggest crumbling 35-60 days. This volition cover about preferences and for virtually people that enjoy a very rich piece of red meat, target 45 days.

Use Whole Untrimmed Sections of Beef

When it comes to selecting meat to dry historic period, buying a big piece that is untrimmed (all the fatty withal on) is preferred. For a Prime rib, I'd go it os in if available.

Pieces of meat with big fatty layers are typically less expensive and they will preserve the yields. Many butchers say they accuse more than because dry-crumbling wastes up to thirty%, simply the folks at SeriousEats dispute this. They say that there is little meat loss considering the fat is trimmed off at the finish and that since meat seals, it stops losing moisture. This may be one of the biggest toll gouging misnomers of beefiness eating carnivores to ever hit their wallets.

My feel and research supports this for Prime ribs with the fatty layer and the bones, in that location is actually footling waist. As an experiment, I smoked beefiness ribs low and slow that started at the estimate same size. One gear up of beefiness ribs is aged 45 days and one is vacuum packed. Smoked, and braised both sets for iv hours. Although there is shrinking during the dry-aging process, the stop event is just about the same corporeality of meat, but they practise have dissimilar flavor profiles. The deviation is the dry-anile beef shrinks less during the actual cooking because information technology starts with less h2o weight. The net is the amount of meat is virtually the aforementioned subsequently grilling.

Dry-Aged Rib Eye

The end cut off to see the drying pattern. Pro Tip: Rotate the meat every week. This dries the meat more evenly — The stop cut off to meet the drying pattern. Pro Tip: Rotate the meat every calendar week. This dries the meat more than evenly

Fully trimmed rib eye dry aged at home ready to grill! — Fully trimmed rib middle dry aged at habitation ready to grill!

Dry-Aged Rib Eye

When I pulled the rib eye at 43 days, I jumped the gun past two days considering I really wanted a not bad steak dinner and I had the time to set it.

The first thing I noticed that the meat develops a tough rhine with some spots. I wasn't sure if it was a fatty deposit or mold, merely it was just on the surface. I've seen dry out-aged meat done past professionals with these same types of spots, so I wasn't concerned. It takes a really sharp knife to trim it. Then, I sharpened my butchers knife and trimmed all the portions that were extra night or appeared to be dried out from the circulating air.

I didnt pause the ribeye downwards to individual steaks, but instead chose to grill it as two roasts at a low temperature of 250-300 degrees seasoned with salt and pepper until it reached an internal temp of 125 degrees.

Dry-aged meat cooks more quickly than regular steaks considering more of the moisture has been removed through the aging process. Information technology took about two hours and my prime rib roast was fix.

Would my roast taste like the expensive butcher? Yes! It had the funky notes and it was very tender and extremely rich. The only bad news is it was so rich, I only ate ii one inch sliced steaks. We invited friends over that are well versed in the flavor of dry-aged beefiness and they agreed, information technology had the aforementioned characteristics of professionally aged beefiness.

My wife was still a bit nervous and she asked me if I thought we could get sick from it. I had trimmed off the parts that looked bad, but the steak was withal a very dark scarlet. I told her we would know the side by side twenty-four hours. The next twenty-four hour period came and people wanted to eat more, so I figured it was a peachy success!

Dry-Aged, Trimmed NY Steak

After 45 days of aging, there is still a small amount of blood in a trimmed steak. — Afterward 45 days of crumbling, there is still a small corporeality of blood in a trimmed steak.

Dry-Anile New York Strip

My wife prefers the bacteria New York Strip steak to the fattier ribeye. Simply her luck, I dry out-aged a whole strip steak. I pulled it at 45 days of aging.

Once once again, I sharpened my big butchers knife. Starting at i end I sliced off the finish to go rid of the part that had been stale out to get the deep cherry-red portion exposed. And so I sliced it into about twelve one inch steaks. Then I trimmed off the edges of the steaks. There was quite a bit more waiste with the New York strips because the lesser of the cut was all lean beef. I cut off about 3/8 of an inch to get to the adept part of the beefiness. The other side was almost all fatty, so trimming that off didn't waste product any meat. Note to self. Inquiry big cuts of beefiness that are surrounded by fat for aging. This style there will be little to no waste product.

On to the flavor. It's incredible. Better than I expected. Perhaps the extra two days mattered or perhaps there is a divergence in the cuts of meat. It has a hint of blue cheese and a prissy musky flavor in each tender bite! So good.

I'one thousand off to Costco tomorrow to get two more large cuts of beef. Hopefully, a large bone in Prime Rib and another side of New York strip to stock the freezer!