Question

[Anonymous]

Hello, can you guys tell me if the entire piece of meat tends to darken at the same time? Ive found that the bottom has dried and darkened quicker than the top, so I gently turned it over to see if that evens it out……..thanks for your help.

[Ron Pratt]

personally I never touch my sub-primal after I place it on my wire rack until I am at the end of the aging period. My way of thinking is that I might disturb the bond that the Drybag has formed against the meat. Also since most sub-primals have one side with a layer of fat (unless someone has seriously trimmed it before aging) so you can’t see both sides of the meat anyway.

[Anonymous]

well my rib eye has 17 days and looks good, now I cant decide whether to go to 21 or 28 days. Kinda nervous……just weird being able to put meat in a fridge for that long with no problems, but I bet ill get over that one with one bite. I have a couple of questions for anybody who would like to answer, A/AA/AAA beef is just a rating of marbling is it not, somebody told me it also has to do with aging but I don’t think so, also does anybody know if Costco ages its beef at all, and 3rd, what stops the meat from going bad, if its the lack of oxygen, how do the big open air agers do it, they have the meat exposed to air…..just trying to learn a few things here….thanks in advance.

[Ron Pratt]

In my humble opinion 17 days for a rib eye sub-primal is just barely getting started in the dry aging process! Personally from my experience I have found that 21 days is barely worth the bother, let alone 28 days, 35 is much better, but 45 days for rib eye is terrific! Then this past Saturday I was talking with a professionally trained chef who told me he gets raves with his steaks aged 62 days in Drybagsteak bags! Why are you so scared? I’m afraid once you have maxed out your aging time that you may get spooked and trim your primal back to only red meat!

[Anonymous]

Not scared, it just goes against everything I’ve learned about meat to this point. If I don’t trim the dried area off, what does it taste like?

[Ron Pratt]

In my zeal last night I mislead you so I apologize. First to answer your question – the trimmed aged meat will have those desired attributes of a more dense meat with greater taste due to the reduction of water content and more tenderness than an un-aged steak. Granted the hardest of the outer layer of meat will look unappetizing and may cause you to trim back to what you feel a raw steak should look like…however, I have found that a less severe trimming which leaves some of the dark color and spots actually mellow during the sear and are quite tasty. I admit it’s a personal thing.

[Anonymous]

So how do you know when to stop trimming the crusty stuff? On my first go around, I went down until the meat was soft to the touch.

[Ron Pratt]

pitmaster wrote:

quote :

So how do you know when to stop trimming the crusty stuff? On my first go around, I went down until the meat was soft to the touch.

Here’s was my most recent New York Loin strip aged for 35 days.

and here it is cut and trimmed.

and a couple of them closer up:

I believe you can see I trimmed the fat, but note the dark brown “rind” I left on. Honestly there is great flavor in that dark meat after your steak has been seared. OTOH why not take the challenge to at least try leaving it on like I do for one steak and see if you like it? You can always cut it off after cooking if you don’t like it.

The other thing are the two end pieces that I call caps. I only trim them slightly – maybe the thickness of 2 sheets of paper! Those two steaks are MINE!!! and I cherish those caps!

Hope this helps, but I’ll add once again it’s all a matter of personal preference!

[Author]

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