First time – steaks

[Michael Durant]

I got a little excited at the idea of dry aged steaks at home. This is my first try and I got a new garage fridge, choice ribeye, choice angus new york and prime new york and wanted to run this by some experts…

I have have a number of thermometers and wireless thermometers in there and temperature is good. Humidity is in high sixties and low 70s and I put some renewable dehydrating devices in there but it still remains the same. Is that a little high? Is the usb fan helping can it unevenly dry the steaks?
Thanks

[Ron Pratt]

Welcome aboard! Actually a few questions come to mind:

How long have they been aging so far? (That is a lot of raw beef giving off moisture.)

Is humidity typically high where you live?

You say this is a garage setting so how hot does it get in your garage?

I see you have a case of bottled water on the bottom, so does that mean you are in & out of that refrigerator on a regular basis, thus exchanging the air with that in your garage?

You also say you have these other monitoring devices but they appear to be sitting inside – right? So when you are reading them the door is open again exchanging the air with your garage air.

Ron

[Michael Durant]

From what I have read, I live in your area I believe. PNW. But I’m in Tacoma area. I started in the home fridge on April 12/14 for the 2-half ribeyes and the new york. I started the last new york April 24 when I was comfortable with the temperature in the new fridge.

For the last while the temperature in garage was not hot at all. Humidy ~50%. I don’t go in there too often but I have been trying to open the door to exchange air (I was assuming that was good from what I read). I can see the digital thermometer with humidity and a couple analog ones when I first open. I have two wireless ones in there as well. One attached to bottom shelf on the right (open air) the other is vacuum sealing in a pickle jar filled with water to give more of a regulated temperature. I can see those from in the house and the pickled one is always 36 or 37 degrees while the other fluctuates a lot more (based the high / lows it records) .

I haven’t seen many recordings of humidify for steaks on here vs. the charcuterie ones so I was kinda curious. Maybe I have seen one where it starts high, and then tapers off as the meat gets more impermeable to mosture.

Thanks
Michael

[Ron Pratt]

Michael, actually I’m clear back here in Illinois. When you have read about the UMAi Dry bags being fine for home refrigerators where the doors get opened and closed the difference is the exchange of air is inside the home and not 50% humid air. That exchange occurs more rapidly in your upright frigerator so that does tax your compressor to extract that new round of humidity. Then like I said those 4 large subprimals you have are also giving up a good amount of water thus keeping your recorded humidity at a higher level than your kitchen refrigerator’s typical contents. Upshot is as long as your unit is working properly you should be fine, but do keep an eye open for any signs of mold due to excess humidity. And just to keep from tearing the bags, or disturbing the bonds try to inspect without removing and handling the meat. Keep us posted! Ron

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