The Original Dry Bag Steak | Make Artisan Dry Age Steak at Home › Forums › Dry Aging Steak › Dry Aging Steak with UMAi Dry® › Using a deep freeze? › So it begins… almost
Got my kit in today! I wanted to go to Sams after dinner, but it turned out that we didn’t have our card with us so I figured I would go tomorrow. Decided to stop at HEB on the way home just to see what they had. Very glad that I did! Turns out they have a sale going on ribeyes at the moment (what I wanted). $5.97/lb for prime grade! Picked up a nice 13.88 pounder for $82.86. I’m going to have to start keeping an eye on their sales now.
Also stopped by Lowes and picked up a few remaining things. One being a fan to circulate the air. This was the smallest, cheapest one they had.
Wanted to get a wire rack also, to keep it elevated off of the freezer tray since it isn’t as open on the bottom. I bent the legs to lower it down and keep the meat within the freezer tray.
Putting it all together…….. (can click on the images to see them a little bigger)
The fan is sitting on the “compressor hump” of the deep freeze. The blue tray is suspended probably a foot or so off of the bottom of the freezer, the wire rack inside it. It pained me to do it, but I did fill up 4 kegs (5 gallons each) with water to build up thermal mass and help keep the temp more even and the compressor from cycling as much. The wire going down into the blue tray is the temp sensor for the Ranco controller that keeps the freezer from being a freezer. I’m going to keep it right there beside the steak’s new home. From the brewing days, I found that if the sensor wasn’t exposed directly to air, the freezer wouldn’t cycle on and off with the slightest change of temps (not good for the compressor). I wound up putting the sensor in a large test tube and filled it with gel. That may or may not survive the whole duration of the aging. I’ve been messing around inside the freezer so much that I haven’t gotten to see how much the temp swings now that the water and fan are in there. If it’s too much variance, I’ll remove some of the gell, or the test tube altoghether. Never noticed it being an issue with the beer, but I do want to double check. Down in between the kegs is my container of Damp Rid. May have to add a second one. Over on the right front corner is, um… more “thermal mass”.
I’m letting the kegs have a little more time to get down to the desired temps, so I’m delaying the steak bagging until tomorrow morning. I’m a tad worried that the bag is going to be too tight. I had in my head that the “subprimal roas size” bags held 15 pounds, but alas, a second look shows that they’re 13’ish. I didn’t buy any of the large bags with my order. Thought I was starting small. 🙂 Holding the bag up to the roast, it “looks” like it is going to fit. Fingers crossed… If I get in a bind, would splitting the ribeye into two have any more ill side effects than just a little more loss to trimming because there’s now 4 ends rather than 2? Or should I wrap & freeze it and wait for big bags? It really looks like it is going to fit, so I’m hoping it’s a non-issue.
Excited!!!