2 days in and white mold spots starting to form…

[Mitch]

Hillbilly,
Any time I bag up a primal/sub-primal cut that came in a sealed wet-aged bag (cryo-vac), I wash the exterior of the cryo-vac bag thoroughly with soap and water to ensure there is no bacteria than can contaminate the process. I brew beer as well and even the slightest contamination can spoil a fermentation with beer, so I only assume dry aging meat to be the same.

Baglady,
I let it go for a week and watched it carefully. By the looks of it, it was a false alarm. I’m guessing the white specs might actually be loose fat particles from processing, but as of now, everything is looking good! Must not have noticed it when I bagged it and have never seen meat speckled with fat dots like that before.

As for the fridge.
I’m aware salt is a passive measure, and the fans only serve to move moist air around, but together they balance the temperature and humidity across the interior of the fridge. This means the condenser doesn’t have to work as hard and you get a more uniform environment without temperature gradients inside the fridge. I have thought to try a better desiccant than salt, but I haven’t had a need to yet. That said, I have been noticing a large amount of condensate under the fridge the last few days as the temp has started to rise. I may have to switch to a more active desiccant to drive the moisture more efficiently than the salt.

The lighting is specifically for the web cam, which has both standard and Night vision modes. The green-scale night vision is useless on a slab of meat and fridges actually ***ARE*** dark on the I side with the door closed! 😉 so the lighting helps both with the door closed and open to make for quick inspections.