The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › Dry Aging Steak › Dry Aging Steak with UMAi Dry® › No thank you – I age them myself…
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February 11, 2012 at 9:25 pm #1362
Ron Pratt
MemberToday I was shopping at a more upscale grocery store which happens to be the only place in town that sells aged beef. They have a 6 x 5 sealed cabinet suspended behind the meat display case where they age meat for 21 days. While I was looking at the display I saw all they had available today were two choice, not prime rib eyes which were no more than 3/4″ thick and they wanted $23.29 a pound! The clerk asked me if I wanted them and I just replied ” No thank you – I age them myself” and walked away as I didn’t have an audience to explain the DrybagSteak story!
$23.29 per pound – what a rip!
February 11, 2012 at 9:34 pm #5597Barry
MemberAn audience would have been nice. We went to an upscale meat market and mentioned that we were going to start dry aging. The butcher looked down at us rather indignantly and wanted to know if we had a walk in refrigerator. I told him about the dry bag technology and how we control the length of drying vs the pre packaged dry aged ribeyes they had (14 days of aging). By the way, they wanted $33 per pound.
February 12, 2012 at 2:52 am #5598Steven Almas
MemberI had a similar experience at an upscale grocery store a few weeks back, I was looking at the meat counter and they had some nice looking dry aged, prime rib eyes. The attendant asked me if I had any questions and I asked them how long the steaks had been aged, he puffed out his chest and said 21 days and then asked if I wanted some, I said no thanks since I still had a half dozen 40 day rib eyes in my freezer. He then said, “Forty Days? No one locally ages that long”. I then said, “No grocer does, but I do, and in fact I have another primal sitting at about 28 days as we speak”. He didn’t scoff, but was impressed by the whole drybag system and that I cared enough about good beef to take the time to do it myself. It was a good conversation all-around.
February 12, 2012 at 2:58 am #5599MemberWe may be talking about the same place but different attendants. One is rather haughty, but the other is a really nice guy.
February 12, 2012 at 5:02 am #5600Scott Mark
MemberI’m having a sympathetic moment. I’m sure it will pass, but please let me work through it.
Starting with the “haughty” attendant. Let’s assume for the moment that the attendant doesn’t truly understand the chemistry and so forth. Let’s assume that the attendant was given the “party line” for making a sale and was struggling to do what was asked, without really understanding the issues.
As for the pricing of the beef – I’ve got at least a few questions. The place was selling 3/4″ ribeye that was cut after aging? Or aged after cutting? Ribeye has quite a lot of extramuscular fat, and I trim it after aging but before packaging. But for specialty items, the cost of the item doesn’t always drive the retail price of that item. If they are moving their product at $33/lb, then they probably have a receptive market for it. This is certainly a specialty item and aimed at a customer who cares more about quality and availability than price. Running a store is a tricky business and managers are always juggling between the items that bring in the profit and the items that bring in the customers.
There are no bargains to be had at the Farmers’ Market. The products might be great, and for natural and organic products the prices might be great. But stuff at the Farmers’ Market always seems quite expensive compared to the stuff at the grocery store.
However – as my possible experiment #5 I might buy some kind of buffalo sub-primal and see how it ages.
February 12, 2012 at 5:38 am #5601MemberPlease let your moment of sympathy pass. The really nice guy talks, gives advice and has been pleasant for the years that we have done business with the store. He will receive a piece of the aged ribeye when it is ready. He is interested in what we are doing.
The other one–completely different story. After our first exchange which was not antagonistic, he later ignored us on a later shopping excursion. The friendly guy came over and we bought some really good filets.As far as the aged ribeyes, they were about 1 1/4″ thick and vacuum packed. They were shipped from Chicago pre-packaged. They were okay, but not as expected. I don’t know which came first–the aging or the trim.
There is plenty of “old money” in the area, so the store has a good business and we continue to wish them well.
February 12, 2012 at 11:36 am #5602Membertoasty wrote:
quote :The place was selling 3/4″ ribeye that was cut after aging? Or aged after cutting?They age full sub-primals and then trim and cut. OTOH with nearly a day since that encounter it dawned on me that all they had left were those two scrawny steaks! Soooo maybe you are right and the joke was on me as they sold all the rest! Guess I was wanting to tout the Drybag product too bad and didn’t have a chance! :laugh:
I’m still puzzled though on the strange price of $23.29! That almost sounds like a price reached using a mathematical formula for mark up!
February 13, 2012 at 5:33 pm #5612Andy Starvaski
MemberLOl. I hhad the same experince at Wegmans. They offer 21 day aged beef at over $30 a lb. I am told that Whole foods also has aged beef, but I’ve yet to stop in and check it out.
21 days – as we well know does little to the flavor, but does drive up the price. Even the high end steak house in town will recomend a minimum of 32 days for ther beef.
I would love to do a blind side by side tasting. My dry aged vs the high end grocery stores dry aged. Hmmmm. Maybe this sprign when my new grill comes in?
February 15, 2012 at 5:55 am #5636Anonymous
GuestThe Whole Foods near me has dry-aged beef. The butcher told me they dry age the NAMP/IMPS #107 rib subprimal, then trim after aging. It looked pretty nice. I don’t recall the price, but it didn’t seem out of line for a store that sells certain 18 to 20 pound turkeys for $135. 🙂
I didn’t buy. I like my dry-aged beef. I generally age from 28 to 34 days.
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