dry aging thawed roasts?

[Stephen Armstrong]

Is it ok to thaw out frozen meat and then dry age them? I have some Boston Roasts that are currently frozen and I would love to be able to use the bags on them.

[Ron Pratt]

Stephen, unless you are lucky enough to be able to buy your beef direct from some farmer then most, if not all you buy has been frozen before you bought it! Soooo, if you have some roasts of sufficient size to now thaw, dry age and then trim after to still give you a sizeable chunk of meat then I say go for it. The reason we normally talk in the terms of sub-primals is it is best to start out with a chunk-o-cow that weighs somewhere between say 8 and 18 pounds, depending on the cut as some weigh more than others. Ron

[Stephen Armstrong]

Actually I do buy my beef from a local farmer but I froze it right afterword. I am going to try it! thanks!

[Ron Pratt]

Great…now I will go back to my buried point…are any of these roasts of sufficient size to be aged? Please do not bag 2 or more together. Ron

[Stephen Armstrong]

Most of the roasts are in the 8-10 pound range. I bought an older cow from my butcher at a great price but the meat was expectadly tougher than most would like which is why I had most of the cow, ground up. I bought it at a steal, But I would still like to try and make it more tender. This is why I am hoping dry aging might help. So you are saying 8 pounds is the minimum?

[Ron Pratt]

No, I never said 8 pounds was a minimum…I had assumed you were going to reply that you had several 1 or 2 pound roasts in the freezer. Small ones just are not right for aging. In your case that older cow probably is too tough to benefit much from aging…I assume you know the adage that you can’t shine sh**…oh never mind… :laugh: Ron

[Stephen Armstrong]

quote :

I assume you know the adage

lol, oh well, I’ll try with one just to see. Even so it was literally an offer I could not refuse! Thanks again for the quick responses!

[Dr. Frederick Howard]

Ron,
As usual you’ve given us something else to ponder. I purchased two cryovac Prime Tri-Tips, but didn’t have the room to dry bag neither along with the two Prime rib eyes I have percolating away. I can wait until I have room, as the first is coming out next week (May 30th), which will give me room for one Tri-Tip. Would you recommend continuing to wet age until the second ribeye is done (June 23rd) or freeze and then dry bag? Yes I know that I’ve been a ba-a-ad boy, but I couldn’t resist those Ribeyes at $8.49 and Tri-Tip at $4.69. In fact both have gone up in just the past week. Let them eat dry aged steak I say!
Doc

[Ron Pratt]

Doc, it must nice to have access to prime meat at terrific prices so that pieces just jump into your cart like that! :laugh: of course if that happened to me I’d just tell my wife that “it followed me home so I have to keep it!”

Now, since you asked my opinion if it were me I would go ahead and freeze one now and just wet age the other until that nearby May date. Then when you have the available space thaw, Drybag and age the second one. Granted another option would be to wet age both until the day you can bag one and then freeze the other at that time. That way both pieces will have had the same wet aging period and then dry age period. Guess it is a coin flipper!

OTOH with your track record I have to wonder how many other sub-primals will jump in your cart in the near future! 😉
Ron

[Dr. Frederick Howard]

Ron,

Your advice and recommendations are always welcome, as others are as Toasty, Rob, et al. Even if not specifically requested, advice from pros are always valued. In this case you gave me a couple of options and I will use the latter – freeze when I dry bag the first Tri-Tip (each into an individual dry bag of course). Makes a lot of sense to me.

Yep, I must be living right as these primals are just leaping out at me and into my cart. However I’m at capacity now for not only reefer space but freezer space as well. So after my second Tri-Tip I’ll be about done (unless another primal leaps out at me, hahaha). I’ll start a new Tri-Tip thread on Thursday and keep the forum posted on my progress. Think I’m going to run this first batch for 28 days, but mayvstill pull one at 21 just to provide myself a baseline. That’ll still leave me with five individual roasts.

Doc

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