ToiletDuc's Vampire Journal

ToiletDuc's Journal

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5 entries this month

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Dry Aging Experiment Day 7
03:14 Sep 12 2009
Times Read: 646

Still looking good. The roast weighed in at 3lb 10oz today, 6.5% lower than the starting weight. It's looking like a few areas are drying out to the point that they'll need trimmed off before cooking, but less than I expected. The humidity is still staying at about 70%, I haven't managed to figure out anything to keep it down lower yet.

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NightBlossom
19:00 Sep 12 2009

I'm telling ya kid, if I get sick from eating this thing I am NOT going to work.

Dry Aging Experiment Day 5
17:04 Sep 08 2009
Times Read: 655

After 5 days of dry aging, the roast is still looking good. I put some baking soda and a bowl of rice in the drawer, and the humidity is dropping back down some, but its still high around 70-80%. The weight is down to 3lb 11oz.

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Dry Aging Experiment Day 3
19:27 Sep 06 2009
Times Read: 665

It's looking good so far. I pulled the roast out of the fridge, changed the wrapping, and weighed it. It's down to 3lb 12oz. The humidity is staying a bit higher than I'd like, not sure what I'm going to do about that yet.

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Dry Aging Experiment
17:38 Sep 05 2009
Times Read: 684

I picked up a 20lb rib roast on sale this weekend and decided to take about a 4lb section and try dry aging it. The rest got trimmed and cut down into nice inch thick ribeyes.

Dry aging is generally only done at high end steakhouses and occassionally at good butcher shops. Typically, they will have a seperate walk-in cooler with temperature and humidity kept at specific levels. I'm trying to make do in the bottom drawer of my fridge. I'm using a fridge thermometer to keep tabs on the temperature, and I'm using a small hygrometer from my cigar humidor to keep track of the humidity.

First, the bottom drawer of my fridge was taken out and sanitized. Then I rinsed off the roast under cold water and dried it off with paper towels. Next, I lined a pan with some paper towels and put a rack inside to keep airflow around the roast. Then, I wrapped the roast with paper towels, put it on the rack, put it all down in the drawer, and stuck the drawer back in the fridge.

Starting weight was 3lb 14oz. Dry aging can cause up to about 20% loss in weight, but I'm keeping the aging on the shorter end, so I'm expecting probably 10-15% shrinkage.

I'll be pulling it once a day to remove the old paper towels and wrap it with fresh dry ones, and watch for any mold or other funkiness.

Provided I don't get any funk, I'm aiming for about 10 days of aging. Typically, meat would be dry aged for anywhere from 10 to 21 days, but I don't think I want to push it past 10 with less than optimal equipment.

Today makes Day 2.

I didn't think to take any pics yesterday or today, but starting tomorrow, I'll probably take a few pics of it every day to show how its progressing.

I should note, this isn't something I'd suggest trying yourself. As long as the temperature and humidity is kept at acceptable levels, and the meat gets cooked to proper temperature the risks of food poisoning is minimal, but it's definitely there. So if you try it yourself and end up with stomach cramps and spraying like a fire hose from both ends, or worse, you can't blame me.