Individual Steaks not Recommended, Right?

[Terry Gregory]

Your patience is appreciated. I just want to make sure I have the fundamentals down. You wouldn’t want to place individual steak cuts together in a dry bag and try to dry age, right? You want the fat cap sort of intact and so forth. Correct?

Thank you.

Terry

[Ron Pratt]

Terry, no you do NOT want to even try to dry age individual steaks NOR do you want to cut your sub-primal before it goes into the bag! It’s not a matter of the fat cap it’s a matter that you don’t want to risk introducing bacteria of any sort into the raw meat before starting the dry aging process. OK? Ron

[Terry Gregory]

Got it! Thank you.

[Terry Gregory]

Okay, I said I ‘got it’ but I do have a follow up question, after all. Do you recommend only using only cryovac packaged meat or is it okay to work with, for example, a two or three bone prime rib roast, that is in the glass display at my local grocer or butcher shop? (I’m thinking food safety, handling concerns here).

[Ron Pratt]

I personally prefer to start with cryovac sub-primal as I know they were sealed at the packing house which I want to believe follows USDA safety guidelines. Re-packaged meat in the meat bin has been handled and who knows what else took place while it laid out and cut into smaller pieces and then repackaged! Ron

[Terry Gregory]

Thank you very much, Ron. I like your reasoning and will make this my habit, as well. –Terry

[Ron Pratt]

Terry,
While I have your attention and before you receive your UMAi Drybags here’s a hint that I wish was printed on every bag going out to a newbie. When doing your first sealing don’t trim the bag any at all! Then if you have a problem sealing it you can trim off the damaged part and try again and again if need be until you get the hang of how your sealer will work with the UMAi bag material. I believe I sealed and resealed my first bag 6 or 7 times! You would be surprised at how many guys will throw away their first failed bag and start with a new one and do that all over again! One chap went through 4 bags as I recall and was very frustrated! In a nut shell I’m saying stick with your first bag and practice with it until you get it!
Ron

[Terry Gregory]

Duly noted. I will trim nothing and I won’t be afraid to continue working with the first bag if my first attempts at a good seal, or snug fit of the material to the meat, should fall short of the mark. Thank you again, Ron.

[Tony Erne]

I agree you could introduce bacteria onto the meat if you handle it during removal from the cyro-bag, but lets face the facts here. I have dry aged with out bags and I wash the meat off, pat it dry with paper towels and place it on a rack inside my fridge. The bark forms just as nice as the dry age bags.

I just pulled a finished rib-eye bone-in (NOT bagged dry aged open air) out of the fridge and cut it into steaks.

I have a day 36 with the UMAi dry age bag bone removed rib-eye still dry aging in the fridge.

I just place two more rib-eyes 19 and 21 pounders (both prime beef) using UMAi dry age bags into my fridge.

So now I have 3 UMAi primal’s bagged one coming out in a few days and two left to age.

Good luck on what you plan on doing its all fixable if you do something wrong since the bark stops any internal damage caused by Bacteria on the surface of the meat.

Just remember to keep your temps at 33-38 degs, good eats dude

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