Create restaurant quality aged meat at home!
Tonight we are having wet aged beef fillet and wild antelope fillet (I just returned from a hunt in Wyoming courtesy of my father-in law. I’m pretty sure you can’t order Pronged Horn at any of the fancy restaurants. Bon appetite!
My Uncle James is a pastor and I love to listen to him giving blessing over meals. He is expressive and articulate. I am neither, so here goes:
Dear GOD,
Thank you for my family and friends.
Thank you for meat.
Dear GOD, let’s eat!
Now that’s a blessing (and a steak) that will make a grown man cry.
The picture is of a hybrid aged (part wet, part dry) ribeye. Can’t get much better than this.
No long post tonight, just a long “Ahhhhh!”
Nothing better on a Friday night than a dry aged ribeye!
This one was only aged four weeks, so it will not have fully developed the flavor possible, but it will definitely be juicy.
TGIF
Just for those of you who want to start simple, I bought a steak to start the process for you. I found choice bone-in New Yorks on special for just $4.88 a pound. That’s a great bargain.
New Yorks steaks in the case
New York Steak in the wrapper
You need something to set your steak on, like a cooking rack. The rack from most toater ovens or a cooling rack for baked goods work well. Just be sure it isn’t porous (you don’t want it absorbing any of the moisture from the meat and creating an environment for bacterial growth. I purchased a stainless steel grilling rack to demonstrate.
Next, to deal with any blood that may drip from your steak, you need a shallow pan on which to set your rack. I used a disposable aluminum tray you can buy at any grocery store. So that whatever drips doesn’t turn to a moldy mess, pour a layer of salt in the bottom of your drip pan. Rock salt or “Ice Cream Salt” works fine for this, although common table salt will also do the job.
The salt creates a “hostile” environment for unwanted bacteria or other organisms that may otherwise spoil your meat (and your fun!) The layer of salt should be shallow enough that it does not come into contact with the rack or the meat. Place the rack on top of the drip pan, and then it is time to prepare your steak.
New York steak after removing surface moisture
Unwrap your steak and dab any excess moisture off using a clean, dry paper towel. You want to remove the excess moisture from the surface of the steak to minimize the amount that may drip and pool on the surface of your rack or the drip pan below. After you have removed the excess surface moisture your steak should look something like this.
Adding olive oil to the steak before aging
Because you are using an individual steak you will only age it about a week at most. Aging it longer will cause it to lose too much moisture. You want an aged steak, not a dry piece of meat!
To slow the loss of moisture I coat the steak liberally with a good quality olive oil. Alternatively, you could trim a little of the excess fat (or request some from your butcher) and render it (cook it to remove the fat from the gristle) and then use that to rub onto your steak once cooled to create a fat barrier to moisture loss, but I will cover that in a later post.
After you coat your steak with your favorite fat above, set the steak onto the rack you previiously placed on top of the drip pan and loosely cover the steak with clean, dry paper towel and set the pan on a shelf in your refrigerator. I prefer to use the lowest shelf because it is the coldest area of the refrigerator. I keep the temperature of my refrigerator at 40 degrees, which works well for aging meat.
Each day after that check on your steak’s progress. Lift off the paper towel, place your steak on a clean dry surface, and wipe any visible liquid off of the rack on which the steak was sitting. Then place your steak back onto the rack with the opposite side of the steak facing up than before, loosely cover the steak with clean, dry paper towel and replace it into the refigerator. Repeat this process daily until no more excess liquid can be seen on the rack and no blood spots appear on the paper towel (typically you will reach that point in three to four days).
Any time after there is no longer any excess fluid on the rack or the paper towel, your steak is ready, however the longer you age it the more the flavor will develop and the more tender it will become. That is because the naturally occuring enzymes in the meat have been hard at work. More on that later too. Note though that the exterior layer becomes harder and thicker the longer it is aged, so take that into consideration when you decide how long to age your steak.
Here is the steak I started earlier after three days, and then again after six days.
Aged Newy York after Three days
Aged New York after six days
You can see that the surface at six days looks darker and dryer than at three days.
When you are ready to cook your steak, set it out on your kitchen counter covered with plastic wrap for a short while to allow the internal temperature to rise a little. This is so there is not such a large difference between the surface temperature and internal temperature when you begin to cook your steak and allows you to more easily create the perfect steak.
Cook your steak as you prefer. I just use a little Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper to season my steaks. I get the barbeque good and hot (unless I decide to smoke my steaks first, which I often do – more on that later too) and place the steak on the hottest part of the grill after inserting a digital thermometer to monitor the internal temperature. After roughly four minutes I turn the steak over and place it back on a hot area of the grill. I set the monitor at 120 degrees.
After another four minutes (or sooner if the alarm on my digital thermometer goes off) I move the steak to a cooler section of the grill and leave it there until the internal temperature reaches 128 degrees, then I remove the steak from the grill (thermometer intact) and place it on a clean, warm surface (I actually use a cast iron skillet heated in the barbeque as my steak is cooking) to let it rest for a few minutes. During this period the internal termperature will continue to rise a bit. I prefer my steak rare to medium rare, so I don’t want the internal temperature to go above 135 degrees. After the temperature “peaks” around 132 degrees and begins to cool a few degrees, the steak is ready to eat. By then the juices will be re-absorbed into the meat and you won’t lose all that wonderful juice onto your plate or the cutting board.
Enjoy!
P.S. – Our friends Allen and Daun had the steak I aged above for dinner last night. We’ll see what they think.
Note: Please be sure to start with clean surfaces and a clean refrigerator to ensure that your meat does not become tainted. Also, avoid having any “arromatics” in the refrigerator such as onions, garlic, and rosemary, as your steak will absorb the odors from any arromatics, which will change the ultimate taste of your meat. There are times when you may want to experiment with certain arromatics, but that is a topic for another day.
Every good thing starts somewhere. Good aged meat starts with good quality fresh meat.
Start with the best quality meat you can afford. I prefer to use USDA Choice or better, although lower grades can work out well too. Just keep in mind that the better quality you start with the better the end product.
You might be thinking “That could be expensive!” But I rarely pay over $6 per pound for the choice meat I buy. I always buy the meat “bone in” for dry aging because it loses less moisture as it ages.
To be clear, the aging process is about developing the flavor and tenderness of the meat, not about drying it out.
Quite some time ago I graduated from aging individual steaks to whole strips. I watch the ads of our local markets and when I find choice meat on sale at a good price I buy the while vacuum sealed strip, frequently more than one at a time (hence the questions I get at checkout.)
I’ll take you through the whole process, but since starting with a whole strip could be a bit intimidating, I’ll back up and show you how to age an individual steak.
This was dinner last night. The Bison was grass fed, ranch raised that my father in-law, son, and I “harvested” last November. What better way to spend a Saturday night than with a great piece of aged meat, a little wine, and a Stanley Cup playoff game!
You don’t have to pay big bucks to eat like a millionaire if you know how to age meat at home.
I became interested in aging meat at home several years ago after watching a short segment of a show on TV that showed how to age individual steaks in a refrigerator. I tried it a few days later and was intrigued by the outcome. The result was good, but not high-end steakhouse good, so I started researching and experimenting. It wasn’t long before I dedicated a refrigerator just to aging meat.
Many family members and friends have joined us for meals that featured aged beef or bison. The meat served routinely garners compliments, but one particularly memorable one came recently from a friend who travels frequently and has eaten in many of the best and most expensive steakhouses in the country. After we finished dinner and sat talking over a glass of Falkner Vineyards Amante my friend looked at everyone still seated around the table and stated confidently “That was the best steak I have ever eaten!”
A few months have passed since then and I have been asked many times about how to age meat at home by curious shoppers who notice the large pieces of meat I purchase at the local supermarket. Although the process is relatively simple, it is more than I can adequately describe in a few minutes in line at the grocery store. A few people have commented that I should start a website to teach people what to do, so this is the beginning of that adventure.
More to follow soon, but let me know if you would like to know how to create restaurant quality aged meat at home at a fraction of the cost of eating the same quality meat at the best restaurants.
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September 20, 2013
John Neal
Old Meat 