The path to a perfect steak starts …

[Ron]

… 28 days earlier.

For a long time I wondered why my steaks – although great – were not as good as the steaks I was
eating at high-end steaks houses. Even when I grilled PRIME grade the steaks were excellent, but something was missing.

I finally found the path to a perfect steak … dry aging.

I am too cheap to pay $25-30/lbs and buy dry aged steaks at Whole Foods, but recently ordered the dry aging
kit and here are the results of my first attempt:

Started with a choice NY strip slab from Costco, and separated into two portions.
Day one of the aging process, sealed into the bags:

Day 14:

Day 28:

Cut off the bag, trim the rind, and cut into thick (more than 1″) steaks:

S&P and Grill on high heat (550 deg. sear, then indirect grilling to desired IT):

Steak Perfection (if you like them MR):

Rich, deep beef flavor, nice crust and sear, very tender and juicy. I know that some some people like the meat aged longer, but we found that 28 days work best for us. Now I have a Prime Ribeye slab aging in the frig.

When you consider the cost of the bags, shipping, the cost of meat, its weight loss due to evaporation and trimming the rind, I am not sure that I saved much, but the steaks are great.

[Rob Babcock]

Nice! I’m very happy with the results I get from Drybags. If I can ask, how did you seal yours, and with what? I’m having no luck getting a good seal, although the results are good. I’m still trying to get a bag to look like yours.

[Ron Pratt]

Thanks for sharing your comments and pictures, Ron and BTW welcome aboard the forum! As I have said here repeatedly the length of aging and the extent of trimming is solely a personal preference so that is nice you have already found your groove.

[Ron]

quote Rob Babcock” post=3264:

Nice! I’m very happy with the results I get from Drybags. If I can ask, how did you seal yours, and with what? I’m having no luck getting a good seal, although the results are good. I’m still trying to get a bag to look like yours.

I use a simple FoodSaver 2222 from wally world. Probably the cheapest on the market.
But I needed a “test run” or two with the dryage bags. Getting these bags sealed properly is not too hard but also was not trivial.

I found that it worked best if I repeated the seal twice on each seam location, while applying pressure on the food saver
bar (that holds the bag in place while vacuum sealing). On each of the seams I applied the seal function of the food
saver twice to create a good bond. Between the seal applications you have to release the latch of the food saver and lift the bar, so it
takes a little practice to keep the bag from moving between the two applications.

There is a learning curve to the process.

[Ron]

quote RRP” post=3265:

Thanks for sharing your comments and pictures, Ron and BTW welcome aboard the forum! As I have said here repeatedly the length of aging and the extent of trimming is solely a personal preference so that is nice you have already found your groove.

I let the second bag stay in the frig for additional 7 days, but we didn’t like the taste of the steaks after 35 days as much
as we liked the 28.That was the extent of my “experiment” but we were very happy with the steaks afer 28 days, so
I think this would be my MO going forward.

[Author]

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