One side is black, the other still reddish..

[Larry]

I am on day 16 of a planned 35 for a 12.5 lb whole Prime Angus loin of NY cut steak. The top side (fat) is black as expected but the underside is still very reddish. Am I OK? I’ve turned the meat over a couple of times and still the same phenomenon. Did I do something wrong? Thanks in advance.

[Ron Pratt]

Not sure where you got the idea that the fat should turn black. I sure have never experienced that and I’ve aged some for 63 days. Also not sure why you are turning the meat over several times either as you are running the risk of puncturing the bag, which you may have already done which might explain the black at a mere 16 days. Have you smelled the package? It should be starting to smell nutty, but if it smells bad you may want to stop now. Ron

[Larry]

Thanks so much for answering. I’m sorry I didn’t see this until now. It’s now 4 weeks. The top looks like all the properly done loins I’ve seen here and on YouTube. The bottom is reddish and, yes, there are areas on the bottom where there is certainly less than 80% contact. I’m not sure if it smells nutty (my nose says “eh” and my heart says “yes” but I don’t know… It certainly doesn’t smell rancid; I’get that for sure! So what to do? I thought two weeks ago that maybe the bottom would catch up, I can see now that it won’t. If it’s edible, it’s time. If it’s not, I guess I have to suck it up and start again… Your advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Ron Pratt]

I sure wouldn’t be so quick to give up! After you decide to steak it out your nose should be your guild. As long as your refrigerator was working properly during that time then the meat itself should not be contaminated. Keep your fingers crossed, but I think you should be ok. Ron

[Larry]

Thanks for your quick reply. So, if it is bad, my nose will tell me? It will smell rancid? (I’d know rancid and it is not) And, if it’s not rancid, since I am at 30 days, I can probably check it out now. Thanks again. BTW, is “Big Green Egg Aficionado” a blog or something. I’d definitely be interested in reading…. Cheers

[Larry]

And could the “bagginess” underneath be accounted for by the shrinking of the meat during aging?

[Ron Pratt]

Yes – the “bagginess” is the result of the drying that is going on.

As for the term Big Green Egg Aficionado that is just a label I hung on myself back when I started teaching classes cooking with a ceramic cooker called a Big Green Egg. I have no blog, but I’m active on a couple BGE forums where I also use the same moniker of RRP.

Ron

[Larry]

Hey Ron. Today is day 42 and I broke the loin down. Learned a lot. The color difference seems easy: the fat cap didn’t turn black, but the meat side did. I guess that’s what to expect, right? First, there was 20% shrinkage, 12.5 lbs turned into 10 lbs. Next, I was surprised by how much waste there is when breaking it down into steaks. Between the fat cap and cutting away the “bark”–the hard desiccated meat on the outside of the loin–I lost 4 of the remaining 10 pounds. Does this sound right to you? Thanks in advance for your reply.

[Ron Pratt]

The 20% weigh loss due to the water released is right on target. BUT trimming 4 pounds off the remaining 10 pounds was excessive! You trimmed back to what I call “grocery store red” and threw away all the great aged beef that you were trying to achieve! That was the best part! What appears brown to you is the most delightful taste of dry aged beef. That turns super mellow and wonderful when grilled and the aged fat is SUPER tasty. I personally will just skim off the outer most hard skin on the meat- maybe at most 1/4″ deep. Even at that many dry aged beef fans trim off zero. In fact it has only been in the last few years as dry aged beef has become more common and popular that someone somewhere began to convince people they had to trim excessively. Sorry for my rant and sorry that you didn’t ask before whacking away what your effort had produced for you. Ron

[Larry]

Thanks for quick response. I really only trimmed off the hard, solid black bark. I also learned that in buying a smaller loin to keep purchase cost down, I bought a piece of meat that limited the number of steaks I could get after cutting away what I did. I will be less discerning on the next one. I’m thinking that next loin will be Choice given that I still have much to learn. Would you agree?

[Ron Pratt]

Here in Central Illinois – even with COSTCO now present I can not buy whole sub-primals which are graded prime so choice is all I can find. What I have learned to do is go to my source when I’m fairly likely to find the meat bins have been restocked that morning and start going through each cryovac package on display. If you look at the large end you normally can get a pretty good reading on the marbling of that package. Remember that only 3% of all the beef produced gets rated prime so there is a lot more graded choice that is pretty good! Ron

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