- Pictures: http://ift.tt/2o5pU5N
- Video Recipe and Trimming: https://youtu.be/Bau-Phi_gcs
This is something we wanted to try for a really long time and it was definitely worth the small amount of effort + long amount of wait time. We researched a bunch of ways to do this and took a lot of advice from Kenji Lopez's guide. We wanted to do it as simply as possible and it came out quite deliciously. We changed a few things like using a salt pan to get a bit more control over the humidity (my apartment gets pretty muggy) but setting this up is very easy. If you have the time and a wine fridge/mini-fridge, we definitely recommend giving this a shot.
Instructions:
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Step 1: Purchase a large Rib Eye roast that's at least, 8 pounds. Size matters here, as you will lose quite a bit of weight and meat volume to the aging process and eventual trimming.. Please note that you CANNOT dry-age individual steaks as there will not be enough meat left after trimming the crust.
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Step 2: Prepare the fridge you are using for your dry aging chamber. We opted to use the wine fridge that came with one of our apartments. You can just as easily complete this process in a mini-fridge. We don’t advise dry-aging in your main fridge as the meat will begin to absorb odors from the other contents (or conversely, give its odor to other things). Make a small incision in the lining of the fridge door, place a small desk fan in your chamber to help circulate air (it does not need to blow directly on the meat), and run the power cord through the incision you made in the door lining. Place a standard, clean dish towel on the bottom of your chamber to catch any drippings that come off of the meat (we did not notice any drippings during our run through)., Fill a pan with any coarse salt (sea salt or kosher work well) and place it on top of the towel. Though some people like Kenji Lopez say the salt is unneccessary, we felt that it was helpful in keeping the the humidity at a more consistent level. If your fridge does not have pre-installed racks, you can place the roast on a roasting rack. Finally, make sure the fridge is set between 35-40 degrees Fahrenheit. Most people prefer to keep temps on the lower end of the spectrum but the fridge hovered around 40 and it worked just fine. If your fridge doesn't have precise temperature control, we would recommend leaving a kitchen thermometer in the fridge just so you can monitor the temperature.
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Step 3: Wait at least 28 days! Many steakhouses do a 28 day aged steak but we preferred to go for 45 days (we came this far already). It's at this point the meat starts to get more complex and it's a really unique experience. It will be extremely juicy, tender, and start to take on flavors that are nutty and almost cheese like. Note that, as we mention in the video, around the 35 day mark we started to notice a distinct odor in the fridge that was slightly reminiscent of stale milk. Not bad, but definitely pungent. Once we cut off the bark, this odor completely dissipated from the remaining steaks.
Some people take this process to 90 or 180 days! We didn't want to go that far because it starts to get pretty intense but you will have awesome results anywhere from 28-45 days. There was a consensus though from most well informed sources that doing anything less than 21 days doesn't really have enough pay off for it to be worth it.
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Step 4: After the dry-age is complete, remove the rack and trim off all the bark! You will see in the video exactly how we did it. Disclaimer- we are not butchers but I think for the most part we did a good job.
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Step 5: Using your preferred method, cook your steaks! We'd recommend not going past medium-rare but cook to your own enjoyment!
Hope you try this and check out our video if you're interested in seeing exactly how we set it up and eventually trimmed the meat.
bon appetit
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