Trimming Practices

[Anonymous]

I would like to get an idea about trimming practices in terms of cleanliness.
I just trimmed my first New York Strip and probably was a bit over careful in terms of cleanliness. I was a bit worried that the outside layer probably didn’t have good things on it (even though RRP likes it) and my concern was whether it would or could contaminate the rest of the meat.

Here are some of my questions.
1. Do you clean your knife periodically while trimming? Hot water?
2. Do you clean or protect your cutting board?

I started by trimming down the fat side and then the two long edges. I then had the remaining “bark” side that I put down on the board. I found that then I could easily slice off a steak until I got to that lower bark which required a bit more pressure to cut through. It did not seem to be easy to pretrim that bark side since it was so irregular and would result in too much unneeded loss. Finally I trimmed each individual steak removing the thin strip of bark and any extra fat. I probably over trimmed but first time out I was not worried about that. I think my total loss was close to 50% but that was mainly due to the heavy trimming I did. There was some darker colored meat that was still very soft that I probably shouldn’t have trimmed but again I wanted to err on the safe side. We will hot tub and grill two steaks tonight for our taste test.

[Ron Pratt]

Doyle – me thinks you worry too much! I’m afraid if you continue to throw away 50% of your meat due to trimming after aging that you soon will say it’s not worth the high cost and even the bother! I really wish you could have gone to some nice steak house where they served dry aged beef and experienced the wonderful taste first so you would have known what to expect. The way you have trimmed has eliminated much of the dry aging benefits and the further the steaks are into the center of the primal the more they will be the same as plain old grocery store steaks at a fraction of the price your trimming has caused.

A week ago I started a thread here about an end cap I called a “runt”. I posted this picture of the “runt” which was an untrimmed cap end that I just knew would be WONDERFUL.

Since I enjoy the cooked untrimmed aged part even better cold than hot I have been snacking on it all this week and sorry to say I’m about done! Guess if it was going to kill me it would have by now – huh?

Let me ask one question – do you like good jerky – and I don’t mean those “Slim Jims” things – but good quality beef jerky. Well, the texture and taste of the cold, cooked dry aged rind is far superior to jerky!

I doubt I will convince you to make a U-turn in the road, but if I can veer you a bit on the road until you have a dining guest or two who appreciates the taste of fine, dry aged beef then maybe you can turn your fearful trimmings into desirable take-home left overs! OTOH if all your friends seem to have already got you into a mindset that you have atomic waste in your refrigerator then what can I say!

[Anonymous]

So, I gather that that means that you don’t try to clean the knife while you are carving up the primal.

Last nights steak went very well. They were both about 6.5-7 ounces which I initially thought was small but found out that they were quite filling with only a spinach salad as a side. We did also have a fine bottle of Reserve Merlot.
Tenderness was surprising to me and it was as tender as a fine Filet Mignon. The flavor initially was a little stronger than I had expected but very good. Not sure how much of that is aging and how much is the Angus beef. Our previous steaks were not typically Angus and I have noticed a more beefy flavor in the Angus beef.

We both agreed that our next DryBag will be on a Rib Eye as that has always been our favorite cut.

Thanks to those that helped me through my initial plunge into DryBagging.

[Mark]

The first ones I have done I have trimmed thoroughly but as lightly as I could. I thought I would introduce this slowly instead of possibly turning some people off with leaving the heavy rind on.
Luckily I was reluctant to throw the trimmings away and instead collected it and put it in the freezer.
This makes an excellent stock and in my case, I threw it in with the soup bone and the results were great.
I have a sirloin culotte (picanha in Brazil) ready to grill tonight and I will be trying both rind on and rind off with it.

[Anonymous]

Kime’s idea of using trimmings for stock is awesome!! I love it!

As for cleaning the knife, I don’t until I’m done. There isn’t anything in the bark that will hurt you if you’re using the drybag technique and keeping it under 40-50 days. Even past that, you’d only need to trim the very surface to get rid of any mold that had managed to start growing.

BTW, about heavy trimming…before we started the Wagyu experiment, we had to convince my friend’s wife that there were other edible parts of the cow than the tenderloin (filet). I took a couple of 36 day dry aged choice+ steaks and MEGA trimmed them. No bark, no exterior fat, no nothing. They looked like elongated filets. If I remember right they were around 15 oz to start with (untrimmed, full bark), and ended up at around 7 oz. Even with the extreemly heavy trimming, the flavor/tenderness was VERY good and very even throughout the meat. We lost some good meat there, but we made our point and got the green light on the Wagyu experiment 🙂

My point is that I don’t think heavy trimming causes you to lose out on anything, assuming you know that what your’e tossing is stuff you don’t want. So, try the bark. If you don’t like it, toss it. Just try it at least once so you know what you’re throwing away.

Or do like Kime and use it for soup stock!

[Author]

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