Dry Aging meats

[Sam Lin 3555]

I've been curious about dry aging for quite a while. Rarely order it at restaurants, often see it in stores. I'm not one who actively seeks it out on a menu. But, I was bored and had a supplier advertising that they'd Umai bag anything I bought from them for a small fee, so why not?

Purchased whole primals from a local restaurant supply group. One is a 6kg ribeye from Ocean Beef, one is a 4kg wagyu striploin, MBS 4-5 from Yarabah Beef. Both are Australian, I'm in Thailand and the Australian beef is a bit better priced than US. There is Thai beef as well, which in general is quite poorly marbled and quite tough/chewy. I'm still trying various breeds and suppliers to find reliable Thai beef; high quality Thai beef exists, but (and this is the struggle of the Thai farmer) to raise it to similar standard means they need to price at a similar price, and the local market simple won't pay the same for Thai vs import.

These two cuts were beautiful. I was torn on aging these, esp the wagyu; with cuts this good to start, they'd be just fine/fantastic cut into steaks as-is. I looked at a few other packs and picked the ones with the best marbling, ignoring the cut and source; supplier was confused, asked which cut I was wanting, finally realized I only cared about the marbling. Pics while in original cryopack; I unfortunately didn't get pics after the cryopack was cut as the supplier got them into Umai immediately (which is the correct thing to do, absolutely minimize open exposure time - Guga actually goes straight from cryopack into Umai bag-to-bag, no touching).

Ribeye:

Wagyu striploin:

 

Had the supplier bag them into Umai bags for me in their chamber sealer (the ribeye was split into 2 chunks to fit their sealer, which will cost me a little bit more trimming discards at the end),  much less tricky than using a Foodsaver or similar vac sealer at home. You'll see from SeriousEats' experience below as well as many Amazon reviews that the Umai can be finicky to do yourself. The bags are a semi-permeable membrane so they never fully "vacuum" - you need to have a good touch as well as be careful with keeping the seal area clean. You must have a sealer that has a button for you to force it to seal, if your sealer automatically seals only after it decides it has enough vacuum, you'll have a very difficult time with Umai.

In the Umai. Properly done, the bag needs to be tight against the meat, no air gaps. It is designed to allow direct air/moisture interchange from outside to meat. If you have a loose bag, you actually create a damp swamp in the bag where moisture leaves the meat but doesn't leave the bag quickly enough, which causes spoilage. This is what Kenji@SeriousEats ran into below.

Umai ribeye:

Umai wagyu:

 

Then put them in a clean fridge that isn't often used; I happen to have a brand new fridge in a condo I'm furnishing. You want to minimize the amount of other contaminants the meat sees, and also minimize the temperature swings (so minimize the number of times someone opens the fridge door). Most of us don't have a refrigerator that gives much control over humidity; you can help balance humidity with pans or chunks of rock salt, or with the amount of meat in the chamber. More meat or more other foods will raise humidity. Salt will help to lower to a small degree. Most aging chambers I see here in restaurants or supermarkets have huge rocks of himalayan salt in them.

Whether you use bags or not, you need airflow all around the meat. I bent up cheap wire racks, they were super flimsy so I used water bottles to help support the center. If you just leave the meat against a hard surface like a plate or shelf, the section with no airflow will rot.

Day 1, so it begins:

 

There's a ton of conflicting info out there regarding home dry aging and regarding Umai bags. Lots of controversy over the Umai bag and whether it is truly allowing dry aging. It allows air permeation and moisture exit, but it does not allow full microbe interchange so it'd make sense that you aren't getting much effect from the mold culture of the environment. For the home user, this is a plus - very few of us have a truly clean refrigerator or a refrigerator we can dedicate only to aging. For someone trying to age in high volume or trying for ultimate flavor, you'll want to set up a separate aging fridge. A lot of very reputable sites are negative about Umai and deny that it is 'aging' - but there are a bunch of other sites that clearly show empirical Umai 'aging' results. The reality is probably somewhere in between; as I mention below, Umai won't have the same microbial activity, but it will certainly allow the oxidation and drying effects.

As Jess Pryles mentions below, just like aging chambers for salami/charcuterie or for cheese, the microbial biome in your aging area makes a huge difference in your final aged taste. She goes as far as to  inoculate (dose) her fridge using a chunk of the rind from a famous aging chamber. If setting up a dedicated chamber for open-air aging, I'd absolutely do this. Just like a salami-maker buys mold or uses the mold from a purchased salami to start their mold culture, having a chunk of untrimmed rind from a well-established aging chamber will give you beneficial mold and bacteria that provide the flavors you want while also suppressing unwanted molds and bacteria, helping to keep your food safe. If open aging, you will need to add some airflow to the chamber via a small fan. With Umai they say to open the fridge every day or two to allow humidity to balance.

Some sites say 30 days barely does anything, others say 45 days is too much, and it has become trendy to try 60/90/120/longer times for the real adventurous. My thought is this duration may differ a bit between Umai and open aging, I'd think open aging is faster, it'll have more air interchange, more microbial activity, and more moisture loss. More than one site has done comparisons and tasters in large majority prefer the 45 day, so that's my target. Having 2 halves of the ribeye means I may leave half for a longer time as my own comparison. My supplier here in their own Thai literature recommends no more than 28 days, I'm thinking due to risk of angry customer if the meat spoils, and due to local tastes being fairly milquetoast, don't want angry customer because their beef has taste.

Now I wait, ~45 days. I only go to that condo on weekends, so I will open the fridge door and check and take photos and provide some air/moisture interchange each week. I'll update here each week.

 

Things I would have done a little differently:

I wish I would have weighed each chunk after they were bagged, but didn't have anything handy and forgot to ask the supplier to. I'd like to track the weight loss over time, I'll start tracking each week going forward regardless. (One site did touch on dry aging by weight, not by time, with the theory that the weight loss is a more accurate indicator of aging. It makes some sense, sort of like how during a cook, our meats all stall a bit differently. And weight loss is the only useful tracker for charcuterie, so there's plenty of evidence to back up that theory.)

I wish I would have cut one or two steaks off before Umai and frozen them, as "non-aged" control samples for comparison. I can buy other pieces fresh to compare later, but this would have allowed a comparison of truly the same piece of meat.

 

Here's what everyone does agree on:

Dry aging improves texture as well as taste. Texture improves fairly rapidly over the first few weeks. Taste takes longer to develop. Anecdotally from comparisons on some grilling FB groups, a dry aged 'cheaper' steak like a Choice grade will be better than an un-aged Prime. By better I mean in comparisons basically everyone prefers the aged steak for tenderness as well as taste.

When dry aging, temperature stability is key. Opinions differ on the correct aging temps, I settled at 2c/36f for my fridge setting. Opt for colder rather than hotter (only downside to colder is slightly slower aging, hotter can potentially lead to spoilage), but make sure you don't freeze.

 

Additional info:

Guga. I like him because he does a ton of comparison, and keeps variables fairly well minimized. Besides this video he has many others comparing aging times/methods or doing some crazy aging projects like super expensive wagyu or super cheap garbage meat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaVzrCIDB4

 

Kenji at Serious Eats. I think his dry aging article is one of his weaker ones; he completely discounts Umai bags after not being able to get them to seal properly and then using one completely improperly:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html

 

Jess Pryles. She's a Meat Science grad and must know the theory, but she does very little comparison and really doesn't go into any tech or detail on her blog, it's written for mass market. She is also frequently sponsored by various US Beef industry orgs, so her recs often need to toe their line:

https://jesspryles.com/how-to-dry-age-steak/

https://jesspryles.com/dry-aging/

 

Umai's own site links a bunch of "how-to" videos from various channels, including Guga.

https://www.drybagsteak.com/videos-dry-age-steak-at-home.php

 

There are tons of other sites talking about or showing how to dry age. I'm enjoying the rabbit hole. Could fully see myself setting up a glass-door aging fridge to be fancy, and doing open aging, no need for bags (the bags cost me about $6 each, looking on Amazon that's surprisingly close to US prices). I can go more into costs if people are interested, but I don't know how applicable they'll be to US. Beef is insane expensive here in general, but wagyu is probably similar to US price as it's a high-end import for either country.

[Steel Shank 9422]

Yo, WTF?

[AustinMT 952]

Will be interesting to follow the process and see the results.  Love dry-aged beef.

[DDD Dad 14332]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:25 AM, Sam Lin said:

I've been curious about dry aging for quite a while. Rarely order it at restaurants, often see it in stores. I'm not one who actively seeks it out on a menu. But, I was bored and had a supplier advertising that they'd Umai bag anything I bought from them for a small fee, so why not?

Purchased whole primals from a local restaurant supply group. One is a 6kg ribeye from Ocean Beef, one is a 4kg wagyu striploin, MBS 4-5 from Yarabah Beef. Both are Australian, I'm in Thailand and the Australian beef is a bit better priced than US. There is Thai beef as well, which in general is quite poorly marbled and quite tough/chewy. I'm still trying various breeds and suppliers to find reliable Thai beef; high quality Thai beef exists, but (and this is the struggle of the Thai farmer) to raise it to similar standard means they need to price at a similar price, and the local market simple won't pay the same for Thai vs import.

These two cuts were beautiful. I was torn on aging these, esp the wagyu; with cuts this good to start, they'd be just fine/fantastic cut into steaks as-is. I looked at a few other packs and picked the ones with the best marbling, ignoring the cut and source; supplier was confused, asked which cut I was wanting, finally realized I only cared about the marbling. Pics while in original cryopack; I unfortunately didn't get pics after the cryopack was cut as the supplier got them into Umai immediately (which is the correct thing to do, absolutely minimize open exposure time - Guga actually goes straight from cryopack into Umai bag-to-bag, no touching).

Ribeye:

Wagyu striploin:

 

Had the supplier bag them into Umai bags for me in their chamber sealer (the ribeye was split into 2 chunks to fit their sealer, which will cost me a little bit more trimming discards at the end),  much less tricky than using a Foodsaver or similar vac sealer at home. You'll see from SeriousEats' experience below as well as many Amazon reviews that the Umai can be finicky to do yourself. The bags are a semi-permeable membrane so they never fully "vacuum" - you need to have a good touch as well as be careful with keeping the seal area clean. You must have a sealer that has a button for you to force it to seal, if your sealer automatically seals only after it decides it has enough vacuum, you'll have a very difficult time with Umai.

In the Umai. Properly done, the bag needs to be tight against the meat, no air gaps. It is designed to allow direct air/moisture interchange from outside to meat. If you have a loose bag, you actually create a damp swamp in the bag where moisture leaves the meat but doesn't leave the bag quickly enough, which causes spoilage. This is what Kenji@SeriousEats ran into below.

Umai ribeye:

Umai wagyu:

 

Then put them in a clean fridge that isn't often used; I happen to have a brand new fridge in a condo I'm furnishing. You want to minimize the amount of other contaminants the meat sees, and also minimize the temperature swings (so minimize the number of times someone opens the fridge door). Most of us don't have a refrigerator that gives much control over humidity; you can help balance humidity with pans or chunks of rock salt, or with the amount of meat in the chamber. More meat or more other foods will raise humidity. Salt will help to lower to a small degree. Most aging chambers I see here in restaurants or supermarkets have huge rocks of himalayan salt in them.

Whether you use bags or not, you need airflow all around the meat. I bent up cheap wire racks, they were super flimsy so I used water bottles to help support the center. If you just leave the meat against a hard surface like a plate or shelf, the section with no airflow will rot.

Day 1, so it begins:

 

There's a ton of conflicting info out there regarding home dry aging and regarding Umai bags. Lots of controversy over the Umai bag and whether it is truly allowing dry aging. It allows air permeation and moisture exit, but it does not allow full microbe interchange so it'd make sense that you aren't getting much effect from the mold culture of the environment. For the home user, this is a plus - very few of us have a truly clean refrigerator or a refrigerator we can dedicate only to aging. For someone trying to age in high volume or trying for ultimate flavor, you'll want to set up a separate aging fridge. A lot of very reputable sites are negative about Umai and deny that it is 'aging' - but there are a bunch of other sites that clearly show empirical Umai 'aging' results. The reality is probably somewhere in between; as I mention below, Umai won't have the same microbial activity, but it will certainly allow the oxidation and drying effects.

As Jess Pryles mentions below, just like aging chambers for salami/charcuterie or for cheese, the microbial biome in your aging area makes a huge difference in your final aged taste. She goes as far as to  inoculate (dose) her fridge using a chunk of the rind from a famous aging chamber. If setting up a dedicated chamber for open-air aging, I'd absolutely do this. Just like a salami-maker buys mold or uses the mold from a purchased salami to start their mold culture, having a chunk of untrimmed rind from a well-established aging chamber will give you beneficial mold and bacteria that provide the flavors you want while also suppressing unwanted molds and bacteria, helping to keep your food safe. If open aging, you will need to add some airflow to the chamber via a small fan. With Umai they say to open the fridge every day or two to allow humidity to balance.

Some sites say 30 days barely does anything, others say 45 days is too much, and it has become trendy to try 60/90/120/longer times for the real adventurous. My thought is this duration may differ a bit between Umai and open aging, I'd think open aging is faster, it'll have more air interchange, more microbial activity, and more moisture loss. More than one site has done comparisons and tasters in large majority prefer the 45 day, so that's my target. Having 2 halves of the ribeye means I may leave half for a longer time as my own comparison. My supplier here in their own Thai literature recommends no more than 28 days, I'm thinking due to risk of angry customer if the meat spoils, and due to local tastes being fairly milquetoast, don't want angry customer because their beef has taste.

Now I wait, ~45 days. I only go to that condo on weekends, so I will open the fridge door and check and take photos and provide some air/moisture interchange each week. I'll update here each week.

 

Things I would have done a little differently:

I wish I would have weighed each chunk after they were bagged, but didn't have anything handy and forgot to ask the supplier to. I'd like to track the weight loss over time, I'll start tracking each week going forward regardless. (One site did touch on dry aging by weight, not by time, with the theory that the weight loss is a more accurate indicator of aging. It makes some sense, sort of like how during a cook, our meats all stall a bit differently. And weight loss is the only useful tracker for charcuterie, so there's plenty of evidence to back up that theory.)

I wish I would have cut one or two steaks off before Umai and frozen them, as "non-aged" control samples for comparison. I can buy other pieces fresh to compare later, but this would have allowed a comparison of truly the same piece of meat.

 

Here's what everyone does agree on:

Dry aging improves texture as well as taste. Texture improves fairly rapidly over the first few weeks. Taste takes longer to develop. Anecdotally from comparisons on some grilling FB groups, a dry aged 'cheaper' steak like a Choice grade will be better than an un-aged Prime. By better I mean in comparisons basically everyone prefers the aged steak for tenderness as well as taste.

When dry aging, temperature stability is key. Opinions differ on the correct aging temps, I settled at 2c/36f for my fridge setting. Opt for colder rather than hotter (only downside to colder is slightly slower aging, hotter can potentially lead to spoilage), but make sure you don't freeze.

 

Additional info:

Guga. I like him because he does a ton of comparison, and keeps variables fairly well minimized. Besides this video he has many others comparing aging times/methods or doing some crazy aging projects like super expensive wagyu or super cheap garbage meat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaVzrCIDB4

 

Kenji at Serious Eats. I think his dry aging article is one of his weaker ones; he completely discounts Umai bags after not being able to get them to seal properly and then using one completely improperly:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html

 

Jess Pryles. She's a Meat Science grad and must know the theory, but she does very little comparison and really doesn't go into any tech or detail on her blog, it's written for mass market. She is also frequently sponsored by various US Beef industry orgs, so her recs often need to toe their line:

https://jesspryles.com/how-to-dry-age-steak/

https://jesspryles.com/dry-aging/

 

Umai's own site links a bunch of "how-to" videos from various channels, including Guga.

https://www.drybagsteak.com/videos-dry-age-steak-at-home.php

 

There are tons of other sites talking about or showing how to dry age. I'm enjoying the rabbit hole. Could fully see myself setting up a glass-door aging fridge to be fancy, and doing open aging, no need for bags (the bags cost me about $6 each, looking on Amazon that's surprisingly close to US prices). I can go more into costs if people are interested, but I don't know how applicable they'll be to US. Beef is insane expensive here in general, but wagyu is probably similar to US price as it's a high-end import for either country.

Uh yeah.  I don't think that's dry aging.  

[RPM 26318]

^^^ That bag isn't dry aging. But, hey... it's your money.

[futureman 22453]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:25 AM, Sam Lin said:

I've been curious about dry aging for quite a while. Rarely order it at restaurants, often see it in stores. I'm not one who actively seeks it out on a menu. But, I was bored and had a supplier advertising that they'd Umai bag anything I bought from them for a small fee, so why not?

Purchased whole primals from a local restaurant supply group. One is a 6kg ribeye from Ocean Beef, one is a 4kg wagyu striploin, MBS 4-5 from Yarabah Beef. Both are Australian, I'm in Thailand and the Australian beef is a bit better priced than US. There is Thai beef as well, which in general is quite poorly marbled and quite tough/chewy. I'm still trying various breeds and suppliers to find reliable Thai beef; high quality Thai beef exists, but (and this is the struggle of the Thai farmer) to raise it to similar standard means they need to price at a similar price, and the local market simple won't pay the same for Thai vs import.

These two cuts were beautiful. I was torn on aging these, esp the wagyu; with cuts this good to start, they'd be just fine/fantastic cut into steaks as-is. I looked at a few other packs and picked the ones with the best marbling, ignoring the cut and source; supplier was confused, asked which cut I was wanting, finally realized I only cared about the marbling. Pics while in original cryopack; I unfortunately didn't get pics after the cryopack was cut as the supplier got them into Umai immediately (which is the correct thing to do, absolutely minimize open exposure time - Guga actually goes straight from cryopack into Umai bag-to-bag, no touching).

Ribeye:

Wagyu striploin:

 

Had the supplier bag them into Umai bags for me in their chamber sealer (the ribeye was split into 2 chunks to fit their sealer, which will cost me a little bit more trimming discards at the end),  much less tricky than using a Foodsaver or similar vac sealer at home. You'll see from SeriousEats' experience below as well as many Amazon reviews that the Umai can be finicky to do yourself. The bags are a semi-permeable membrane so they never fully "vacuum" - you need to have a good touch as well as be careful with keeping the seal area clean. You must have a sealer that has a button for you to force it to seal, if your sealer automatically seals only after it decides it has enough vacuum, you'll have a very difficult time with Umai.

In the Umai. Properly done, the bag needs to be tight against the meat, no air gaps. It is designed to allow direct air/moisture interchange from outside to meat. If you have a loose bag, you actually create a damp swamp in the bag where moisture leaves the meat but doesn't leave the bag quickly enough, which causes spoilage. This is what Kenji@SeriousEats ran into below.

Umai ribeye:

Umai wagyu:

 

Then put them in a clean fridge that isn't often used; I happen to have a brand new fridge in a condo I'm furnishing. You want to minimize the amount of other contaminants the meat sees, and also minimize the temperature swings (so minimize the number of times someone opens the fridge door). Most of us don't have a refrigerator that gives much control over humidity; you can help balance humidity with pans or chunks of rock salt, or with the amount of meat in the chamber. More meat or more other foods will raise humidity. Salt will help to lower to a small degree. Most aging chambers I see here in restaurants or supermarkets have huge rocks of himalayan salt in them.

Whether you use bags or not, you need airflow all around the meat. I bent up cheap wire racks, they were super flimsy so I used water bottles to help support the center. If you just leave the meat against a hard surface like a plate or shelf, the section with no airflow will rot.

Day 1, so it begins:

 

There's a ton of conflicting info out there regarding home dry aging and regarding Umai bags. Lots of controversy over the Umai bag and whether it is truly allowing dry aging. It allows air permeation and moisture exit, but it does not allow full microbe interchange so it'd make sense that you aren't getting much effect from the mold culture of the environment. For the home user, this is a plus - very few of us have a truly clean refrigerator or a refrigerator we can dedicate only to aging. For someone trying to age in high volume or trying for ultimate flavor, you'll want to set up a separate aging fridge. A lot of very reputable sites are negative about Umai and deny that it is 'aging' - but there are a bunch of other sites that clearly show empirical Umai 'aging' results. The reality is probably somewhere in between; as I mention below, Umai won't have the same microbial activity, but it will certainly allow the oxidation and drying effects.

As Jess Pryles mentions below, just like aging chambers for salami/charcuterie or for cheese, the microbial biome in your aging area makes a huge difference in your final aged taste. She goes as far as to  inoculate (dose) her fridge using a chunk of the rind from a famous aging chamber. If setting up a dedicated chamber for open-air aging, I'd absolutely do this. Just like a salami-maker buys mold or uses the mold from a purchased salami to start their mold culture, having a chunk of untrimmed rind from a well-established aging chamber will give you beneficial mold and bacteria that provide the flavors you want while also suppressing unwanted molds and bacteria, helping to keep your food safe. If open aging, you will need to add some airflow to the chamber via a small fan. With Umai they say to open the fridge every day or two to allow humidity to balance.

Some sites say 30 days barely does anything, others say 45 days is too much, and it has become trendy to try 60/90/120/longer times for the real adventurous. My thought is this duration may differ a bit between Umai and open aging, I'd think open aging is faster, it'll have more air interchange, more microbial activity, and more moisture loss. More than one site has done comparisons and tasters in large majority prefer the 45 day, so that's my target. Having 2 halves of the ribeye means I may leave half for a longer time as my own comparison. My supplier here in their own Thai literature recommends no more than 28 days, I'm thinking due to risk of angry customer if the meat spoils, and due to local tastes being fairly milquetoast, don't want angry customer because their beef has taste.

Now I wait, ~45 days. I only go to that condo on weekends, so I will open the fridge door and check and take photos and provide some air/moisture interchange each week. I'll update here each week.

 

Things I would have done a little differently:

I wish I would have weighed each chunk after they were bagged, but didn't have anything handy and forgot to ask the supplier to. I'd like to track the weight loss over time, I'll start tracking each week going forward regardless. (One site did touch on dry aging by weight, not by time, with the theory that the weight loss is a more accurate indicator of aging. It makes some sense, sort of like how during a cook, our meats all stall a bit differently. And weight loss is the only useful tracker for charcuterie, so there's plenty of evidence to back up that theory.)

I wish I would have cut one or two steaks off before Umai and frozen them, as "non-aged" control samples for comparison. I can buy other pieces fresh to compare later, but this would have allowed a comparison of truly the same piece of meat.

 

Here's what everyone does agree on:

Dry aging improves texture as well as taste. Texture improves fairly rapidly over the first few weeks. Taste takes longer to develop. Anecdotally from comparisons on some grilling FB groups, a dry aged 'cheaper' steak like a Choice grade will be better than an un-aged Prime. By better I mean in comparisons basically everyone prefers the aged steak for tenderness as well as taste.

When dry aging, temperature stability is key. Opinions differ on the correct aging temps, I settled at 2c/36f for my fridge setting. Opt for colder rather than hotter (only downside to colder is slightly slower aging, hotter can potentially lead to spoilage), but make sure you don't freeze.

 

Additional info:

Guga. I like him because he does a ton of comparison, and keeps variables fairly well minimized. Besides this video he has many others comparing aging times/methods or doing some crazy aging projects like super expensive wagyu or super cheap garbage meat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaVzrCIDB4

 

Kenji at Serious Eats. I think his dry aging article is one of his weaker ones; he completely discounts Umai bags after not being able to get them to seal properly and then using one completely improperly:

https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html

 

Jess Pryles. She's a Meat Science grad and must know the theory, but she does very little comparison and really doesn't go into any tech or detail on her blog, it's written for mass market. She is also frequently sponsored by various US Beef industry orgs, so her recs often need to toe their line:

https://jesspryles.com/how-to-dry-age-steak/

https://jesspryles.com/dry-aging/

 

Umai's own site links a bunch of "how-to" videos from various channels, including Guga.

https://www.drybagsteak.com/videos-dry-age-steak-at-home.php

 

There are tons of other sites talking about or showing how to dry age. I'm enjoying the rabbit hole. Could fully see myself setting up a glass-door aging fridge to be fancy, and doing open aging, no need for bags (the bags cost me about $6 each, looking on Amazon that's surprisingly close to US prices). I can go more into costs if people are interested, but I don't know how applicable they'll be to US. Beef is insane expensive here in general, but wagyu is probably similar to US price as it's a high-end import for either country.

what are you up to in thailand?  did you go to UT?

[Sbbruin 21842]

8 minutes ago, futureman said:

what are you up to in thailand?  did you go to UT?

[jeevsie 3733]

Interesting post. I shall follow along.

[Deej 76759]

That looks like a serial killer's fridge. 

[luke duke 6412]

what are you up to in thailand?  did you go to UT?

Quit flirting and just ask him if he wants to fuck.

[futureman 22453]

1 minute ago, luke duke said:

Quit flirting and just ask him if he wants to fuck.

 

where’s your decorum.  you gotta dance around these things a little. 

[Sam Lin 3555]

As I mentioned: 

On 9/21/2020 at 1:25 PM, Sam Lin said:

Lots of controversy over the Umai bag and whether it is truly allowing dry aging.

 

The majority of the studies that compare open-air aging and membrane bag aging have found no difference to the consumer (taste/texture) between either 'dry aging' method. What the studies do find is the mold and yeast counts, as well as the weight loss, are lower with membrane bag aging. This means the bag provides a buffer against the environment, which is very helpful to someone aging at home in a fridge that is shared with other foods and opened somewhat frequently. The lower weight loss is a benefit to anyone, whether home chef or commercial restaurant/butcher, but the weight loss is not decreased enough to offset the cost of the bag for the commercial producer.

The majority of studies don't go very long; I saw up to 55 days in cursory browsing. I would expect more differences to appear between open-air and membrane bag aging as the time gets longer, especially as we see chefs push the limits with 90/120/240/360 day aging.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22062568/ - "The sensory panel detected no differences for most of the sensory attributes between samples using the two dry ageing methods, except for the odour of the cutting surface."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22062568/ - "No differences (P>0.05) were noted for pH, moisture, fat, total plate counts, cook loss, shear force, or any measured sensory attribute between the two aging treatments..."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20416624/ - "There were no differences (P>0.05) in any of the sensory traits between shell and strip loins or dry aging using a traditional method or in a bag. Dry aging in a bag creates positive effects on yields, no negative effects on product quality, and adds flexibility and control of the aging environment."

 

 

However, there are some studies that find no benefit to either form of dry aging. (Do note that the test steaks in this study were cooked to basically well-done and that may have destroyed any noticeable differences in the meat.):

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23501255/ - "Sensory panel evaluation also showed no effect (P>0.05) of aging method or quality grade on myofibrillar tenderness, juiciness, connective tissue amount, overall tenderness or off flavor intensity. ... Neither D nor SB aging had advantages over W aging."

 

 

Many of those studies are paywalled; this one is not, it is more of an "overview of aging" and cites all of the above studies. Membrane bag aging is covered on PDF page 5. If you're into eating beef and want to nerd out on food science, this is a nice summary document that most should find interesting.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301667697_Dry_aging_of_beef_Review

[Trey3216 15346]

3 minutes ago, Sam Lin said:

As I mentioned: 

 

The majority of the studies that compare open-air aging and membrane bag aging have found no difference to the consumer (taste/texture) between either 'dry aging' method. What the studies do find is the mold and yeast counts, as well as the weight loss, are lower with membrane bag aging. This means the bag provides a buffer against the environment, which is very helpful to someone aging at home in a fridge that is shared with other foods and opened somewhat frequently. The lower weight loss is a benefit to anyone, whether home chef or commercial restaurant/butcher, but the weight loss is not decreased enough to offset the cost of the bag for the commercial producer.

The majority of studies don't go very long; I saw up to 55 days in cursory browsing. I would expect more differences to appear between open-air and membrane bag aging as the time gets longer, especially as we see chefs push the limits with 90/120/240/360 day aging.

 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22062568/ - "The sensory panel detected no differences for most of the sensory attributes between samples using the two dry ageing methods, except for the odour of the cutting surface."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22062568/ - "No differences (P>0.05) were noted for pH, moisture, fat, total plate counts, cook loss, shear force, or any measured sensory attribute between the two aging treatments..."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20416624/ - "There were no differences (P>0.05) in any of the sensory traits between shell and strip loins or dry aging using a traditional method or in a bag. Dry aging in a bag creates positive effects on yields, no negative effects on product quality, and adds flexibility and control of the aging environment."

 

 

However, there are some studies that find no benefit to either form of dry aging. (Do note that the test steaks in this study were cooked to basically well-done and that may have destroyed any noticeable differences in the meat.):

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23501255/ - "Sensory panel evaluation also showed no effect (P>0.05) of aging method or quality grade on myofibrillar tenderness, juiciness, connective tissue amount, overall tenderness or off flavor intensity. ... Neither D nor SB aging had advantages over W aging."

 

 

Many of those studies are paywalled; this one is not, it is more of an "overview of aging" and cites all of the above studies. Membrane bag aging is covered on PDF page 5. If you're into eating beef and want to nerd out on food science, this is a nice summary document that most should find interesting.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301667697_Dry_aging_of_beef_Review

As you mentioned?   You mentioned 1/3 of Genesis, so I imagine some folks didn’t get to that mention.   

[Sam Lin 3555]

Just wait until I get to Deuteronomy.

[Reagan1k 3024]

12 hours ago, Sam Lin said:

(Do note that the test steaks in this study were cooked to basically well-done and that may have destroyed any noticeable differences in the meat.):

Yeah - by destroying the meat you do tend to invalidate the study.  Why even run the test if it isn't applicable to the way ANYONE who wants a dry aged steak will actually consume it.

 

12 hours ago, Sam Lin said:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23501255/ - "Sensory panel evaluation also showed no effect (P>0.05) of aging method or quality grade on myofibrillar tenderness, juiciness, connective tissue amount, overall tenderness or off flavor intensity. ... Neither D nor SB aging had advantages over W aging."

When the only flavor or juiciness comes from the A-1 slather on it, that tends to affect the results.  

"Let's run a test and see how well a Prius handles at 200mph.......Yeah, I know a Prius won't go 200mph, but shut up - I got a research grant."

[AustinMT 952]

7 hours ago, Reagan1k said:

Yeah - by destroying the meat you do tend to invalidate the study.  Why even run the test if it isn't applicable to the way ANYONE who wants a dry aged steak will actually consume it.

 

When the only flavor or juiciness comes from the A-1 slather on it, that tends to affect the results.  

"Let's run a test and see how well a Prius handles at 200mph.......Yeah, I know a Prius won't go 200mph, but shut up - I got a research grant."

It would with a Flux Capacitor

 

[Sam Lin 3555]

1 week update, interesting how the wagyu behaves compared to the regular Angus. The wagyu is darker, and feels like it dries faster. I wasn't able to get a scale so I don't have any weight loss data, unfortunately.

The wagyu looks epic. The flesh dries much more than the fat, which makes the marbling more and more pronounced. It's gorgeous. Wagyu:

 

I flipped each piece over, curious to see what the water bottle support did to airflow and drying - turns out it did a lot! Despite there still being wire rack between the bottle and the meat, you can very clearly see the line of 'less drying' where the meat was against the bottle. One white paper I read also mentioned keeping fat side down to maximize air flow to the flesh, as the fat really doesn't 'age' much and winds up being trimmed as rind when the meat is prepped for consumption. I'll monitor and flip to a new position each week, unless I find stronger racks so I don't need the supplemental water bottle support.

Ribeye flipped, clear white line of 'less dry'

Other half of ribeye flipped:

Wagyu flipped, same clear line of 'less dry':

 

Also, the middle piece of ribeye had a portion of the bag flap folded under when I placed it into the refrigerator. When I flipped it, it's clearly visible where the double layered bag slowed the drying process. (Overlap is at the bottom of the photo - compare the color of the flesh from top to bottom). Made sure to not have the flap overlap when I flipped it and will make sure this doesn't happen again.

 

Fridge didn't have any obvious smell, or any visible moisture issues. Left it like this, next update in a week. (Ribeye half on top, ribeye half on middle, wagyu striploin on bottom. Same positions as OP above.)

 

Reading through more white papers, the Umai bag material is made by Tub-Ex, and is their Tublin 10 membrane plastic. Data sheet is here: http://tub-ex.com/products/tublin-2/tublin-10/

 

Mfg site is here: http://tub-ex.com/products/tublin-2/ 

Tublin is apparently made in various grades: 00, 05, 10, 30, 35. I haven't dug into the spec sheets yet to determine the vapor transmission difference and whether it's a linear difference related to those numbers. Grades 10, 30, 35 are listed as "closed against bacteria," which is the real advantage of using them for a home user. I do find it interesting that for grades 5 and 35, they state a product packed in Tublin will dry faster than without any packaging, which would seem to indicate that the Tublin in contact actually wicks moisture out and evaporates it quicker due to increased surface area of the membrane.

 

 

[WhatTheBuck 28776]

I've enjoyed it but I'm not sure it's worth the time and expense. 

[Lat22 4010]

On 9/21/2020 at 1:25 AM, Sam Lin said:

Here's what everyone does agree on:

Dry aging improves texture as well as taste.

I disagree that it improves the taste.  It changes it for sure, but doesn't improve it for me. 

[Sam Lin 3555]

On 9/28/2020 at 5:24 AM, Lat22 said:

I disagree that it improves the taste.  It changes it for sure, but doesn't improve it for me. 

What age(s) of beef have you tried? First ~3 weeks tenderize and concentrate flavor, don't really build new flavors. Something similar to the difference in 'beefiness' between a NY strip and a tenderloin, and inversely the tenderness. Over a month and into the multiple month ages, you start to get funk and new flavors, and many more differing opinions.

 

 

2 weeks in. Now can notice a smell if you get close to the bag, hard to describe it, but the closest thing I can identify is a hint of soy sauce. It really just smells like umami richness. The wagyu darkens noticeably quicker, at least on the cut face; I really wish I had weight data to see if it's drying quicker or just oxidizing quicker. The top and bottom faces are pretty similar between the different meat. The white "stripe" of poor airflow from the water bottle last week has gone away. Unsure if the wagyu darkening is also a function of being the lowest position in the fridge, maybe the airflow is very uneven.

Ribeye cut face at 2wk

Piece1

Piece2

 

Wagyu cut face front/back:

 

Ribeye underside:

 

Wagyu underside:

 

The piece that had the bag folded over the end is an interesting study, the end that had the bag folded over does seem to now be a week 'behind' in aging/drying. At 2 weeks it has darkened but not near as much as the rest of the surface. (Folded end closest to camera, can compare with colors from 1wk above.)

 

Yanked the water bottles out figuring the meat had hardened enough pellicle to hold shape even with a soft rack. Threw in 2 salt blocks because they were on sale and why not. Doubt they do anything in my fridge. Talking to a friend who started a ribeye about the same time as me, his fridge clearly has lower humidity (possibly also due to opening/closing, his is a daily used fridge) and his piece is drying noticeably quicker with a harder pellicle and darkened quickly. I left the fat side down and plan to stay that way for the rest of the aging, but I might swap the rack positions next week.

 

Additioanal reading: Reddit has a dry aging sub here, the comment replies share a lot of experience and photos as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DryAgedBeef/

[Sam Lin 3555]

Update, week three: The ribeye continues to darken, while the wagyu hasn't really changed from last week. Maybe the fat has tanned a little more on it is all. To the touch, they're slightly harder, but again not a huge change from last week.

The umami soy sauce smell has gotten stronger, now don't need to be right up against the bag to smell it, though the fridge doesn't smell of it when opened.

 

This is the same face as Piece1 in the previous post (flipped over), has now darkened up a bit.

 

This is the same 'ribeye underside' from previous post, but turned 180 to camera, so you're now looking at the opposite end. Is interesting how the cut face darkens so much slower than the wagyu cut face:

 

This is the same wagyu front face on previous post:

Wagyu underside:

 

I swapped the positions of the top and bottom pieces and flipped them over, wagyu now on top:

Will decide next week if I want to end one of the pieces at 30days and let the others ride on to 45.

 

 

Definitely regretting not having weight data. The friend I mentioned before just ended his ribeye at 3 weeks (he started 2 days before I did). It went from 3kg to 2.2kg in bag, and he ended up with 1.8kg after trimming the pellicle. From photos his fridge must have been lower humidity than mine, his meat clearly dried much faster and formed a hard skin fairly quickly. The weight loss seems aggressive for only 3wk. (or the grade of beef made a massive difference)

His 2wk - you can see how much 'drier' his looks even at this stage:

His 3wk (he cut it soon after this):

His pellicle trimmings:

His meat after trim:

His meat didn't have much marbling, it's a lower-grade ribeye that he did as a trial for his first aging. He expects to cook his first pieces this week, will share his report when he does.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Sam Lin

[52-80 19150]

Week 5 report: I threw away the science experiment and went to a steakhouse instead

[Sam Lin 3555]

On 10/12/2020 at 5:20 PM, 52-80 said:

Week 5 report: I threw away the science experiment and went to a steakhouse instead

Gotta take the risk and find out. I will note that my steakhouse attendance has dropped sharply since getting a Kamado. I haven't paid off the Kamado yet in restaurant savings, but I'm well on the way.

 

Didn't post a week 4 update. No big changes from the previous; more darkening, stronger soy sauce smell. I meant to cut one ribeye at this point, but didn't have cooler space to safely bring it back from the condo, so I left it for 5wk. Week 4 pics:

Wagyu face:

Wagyu underside:

Ribeye1 face:

Ribeye2 face:

 

I've cut one at week 5, post coming soon.

[Sam Lin 3555]

Bought a larger kitchen scale and weighed the pieces at 5 weeks. Wish I'd gotten weights at each week, but I can at least compare to the original package weight and see total weight loss.

Wagyu striploin started at 3.96kg, now at 3.12kg, 22% weight loss

Ribeye started at 6kg and are now at 4.55kg, 24% weight loss.

 

Open the bag. When the bag was sealed, the main smell outside was strongly soy sauce. With the bag opened, the smell is strongly butter with a hint of soy sauce. Smells like very rich butter. You can see the salt crystals on the surface of the fat where moisture has evaporated off:

The bag membrane remained very well adhered to the meat surface, despite the amount of shrinkage. I have some video, working on upload, showing how hard it is to peel the bag away, as well as pressing on the surface of the meat to try and show how hard the pellicle gets. One note, while peeling the bag off, I stretched one of the heat sealed seams and the seal came apart; this Umai bag material clearly does not fully fuse during heat seal, so you need to be careful with the sealed seams when handling.

Trying to show the pellicle surface. It's a hard, waxy feel. The sharp edges are knife-sharp where proteins dried into a bag edge or seam.

Underside:

 

[Sam Lin 3555]

I went ahead and cut the upper piece of ribeye in the stacked scale pic above; it was the thinnest, 'flattest' piece of meat, not optimal for drying as it had a lot of wasted surface area, very little fat cap to protect the meat, and the 2 cut faces lost a lot to trimming. That piece was 2.39kg after aging, and my trimmings came out to 0.98kg, leaving 1.4kg or 3.1lb of steak. The trimming number is inflated and is not all due to the aging loss; you'll see from pic below that I trim fairly aggressively and take off a lot of fat that is perfectly edible from a aging standpoint, and this piece had a point end that was basically all fat so I cut off a full 1.5 inches of it.

First cut (is the deepest?)

Continuing on. The second cut face got mangled by knife misalignment. That pellicle is effing hard to cut through at places. I have a video I'm uploading showing the cut difficulty.

Trimmed, and trimmings. The cut face smells just like rich butter - the soy sauce smell comes only from the pellicle, after trimming you don't smell it on the meat at all. It's clear during handling that the meat texture has softened and gotten more tender. I ate a little piece from the center, raw, and didn't notice any tastes that seemed abnormal.

   

Vac sealed and Into the freezer. Bag of trimmings on the right, to be ground with burger meat later.

 

No question the bag allows drying, this meat had very clear case hardening, hence the hard, relatively thin pellicle. In charcuterie you don't want a hard pellicle like this, it actually blocks further moisture loss from the core and prevents fermentation and curing. I'm still reading and learning whether it's as much of an issue for aging beef. Will try to get a humidity meter to see where that fridge runs, but empirically comparing to my friend above, mine dried slower than his.

Will cook a piece later this week, will also cut the other 2 pieces soon now that they're in a fairly active fridge and have been transported with minimal care.

[Sam Lin 3555]

Trying to share videos via Google Photos. If this doesn't work I'll figure out uploading them to Youtube for embedding.

 

Video showing peeling the bag and how well it was bonded to the meat (ASMR fans will particularly enjoy this one):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yAmCjHL5gM6TJTVY7

 

Video showing pressing on the surface to show hardness:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/3EqMCQ2H1ApoNwBRA

 

Video of cutting a slice, showing how hard it is to cut through the pellicle: (despite appearances, this is a sharp knife)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/XwzWt6Y5KCR9xg9g6

[luke duke 6412]

Get one of these and report back.

https://www.dryagerusa.com/

[Anastasis 23469]

12 hours ago, luke duke said:

Get one of these and report back.

https://www.dryagerusa.com/

$6k for a small fridge.  Cool. 

[AustinMT 952]

7 hours ago, Anastasis said:

$6k for a small fridge.  Cool. 

You can buy a lot of dry-aged beef for that price.  It would take a long time to get your money back when you add in the cost of the meat to then age, not to mention the amount of work you have to put in yourself.

[Sam Lin 3555]

I cut the wagyu striploin at 40 days, took pics but then got busy and didn't put up a post.

40 day wagyu - this piece was glorious to start and only got better with age. For anyone wanting to dry age, get as much fat cap as you can, it really protects the meat and reduces your trimming loss at the end. I can see why a bone-in cut, untrimmed, is the preferred way to do this - the bones shield half of it, the fat shields the other half. I haven't dealt much with raw wagyu - have read about it, but working with it really highlights how different it is from regular beef. The fat is so soft and is liquid at room temp. I ate a piece of it raw while cutting, and holy shit it's good, just rich buttery beefy flavor.

First cut:

More cuts:

Before and after trimming - you can see this didn't waste much meat due to the fat layer:

The fat is liquid at room temp - I tried to show the consistency on the knife in this pic. I kept putting my pieces back in the freezer just to keep them firm as I worked:

This piece was about 3kg after the dry age, and the trimmings weighed 925g. Original starting weight was just under 4kg - just over 50% yield when done.

[Sam Lin 3555]

On 10/31/2020 at 9:26 AM, luke duke said:

Get one of these and report back.

https://www.dryagerusa.com/

Re: these purpose-built dry aging cabinets, it's very easy to convert a regular refrigerator into an aging cabinet. At a very basic level you need some airflow and some attempt to control humidity, like this guy (and like the Jess Pryles link above):

 

If you want to get more fancy, you look at what the charcuterie guys are doing, because they need to control temperature and humidity separately (and because they run temps outside of regular fridge temps, so you can't just leave the fridge on all the time). Still start with a junk fridge, but you add a humidifier, airflow, and PID control. Total cost is still low hundreds:

 

Takes a lot of Umai bags to pay for a fridge, but if you're serious about it and always want to have a piece or two aging, it pays to set up a separate fridge just so your meat can age in peaceful solitude.

[Sam Lin 3555]

I just cut the last ribeye last night at 79 days (brought it home, threw it in my home fridge, forgot about it). Shouldn't have forgotten about it, I didn't put it on a rack so the underside didn't get as much air and grew a little mold. White, not fuzzy, so from my charcuterie experiments I wasn't concerned about it. Home fridge runs higher humidity as it's typically full of food including fruits and vegetables that are giving up moisture constantly - made this piece easier to cut and trim, the pellicle wasn't near as hard. Umai bag had detached from much of the surface, which I'm sure contributed to the mold, as this piece was supposed to get cut 40 days ago and wasn't handled carefully at all when I brought it home. Smell still had a heavy soy sauce component, but also has a blue cheese funk that is commonly described with longer dry age. Not having been around much of it myself, I don't have much to compare.

79 days of fun:

Little bit of white mold:

First cut:

More cuts:

Final weight was 917g of trimmings and 1040g of steaks. I didn't weigh it each week to see the loss, but weight back at the 35day mark was 2.16kg, so it really didn't dry much more on the second 40day stretch. Visually (you can compare with the cut photos above, this was literally the same piece of meat, split up and aged twice as long) and to the touch, it isn't much different from the half I cut at 35 days, which makes sense given the literature that most of the texture improvement happens in first 2-3wk and the rest is just building flavors.

Will update more once I actually cook and try some of this - been busy and haven't actually cooked any of these yet!

[Fat Bastard 600]

When the fuck are you going to cook one? Jesus Christ. 

[Jimbaround 975]

I've never used bags and usually put it on a rack in the garage fridge (doesn't see regular opening/closing).  As you can see I've used salt blocks but I can't say they make a difference (nothing scientific to back up my thought).  I have found the meat dries out pretty quickly and about 14 days is the most I want to go.

The most I've done is about 30 days (might have been 35, I don't remember) and that meat was delicious in a bleu cheese way.  Too rich and funky to eat a whole steak.

Pics
14-Day strip. 

Ready for slicing

Sliced

Money shot - This steak was just awesome.  Deep rich beefy flavor and very tender.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Jimbaround

[Jimbaround 975]

Here's the 30-day.  It was funky, but not in a bad way (I can't find the cooked pics).  Just a very powerful aroma and flavor.  Also, I started with a 5lb hunk and ended up with a 18oz (1.1 lbs) steak.  Unbeknownst to me there was a slice (puncture) in one side of the meat that went in about 4 inches.  One whole side had "rot" from the inside and I had to discard it.  Still a fun experiment.

Week 2ish

Week 3ish

Edited December 11, 2020 by Jimbaround

[Jimbaround 975]

Here's what I currently have working: 14lb choice strip.  I'm going to check it after a week and see what we've got.  No fancy bags, and just some coarse salt on the bottom of the pan... why not?  This is after 5 days and you can see how dark it's already getting.  Open aging is much much quicker than the bag.

 

[OrangEngr 1035]

Get one of these and report back.

https://www.dryagerusa.com/

It’s nice to have retired parents with too much money



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[luke duke 6412]

I’ll take the middle 1/3 of the one on top.

[Baboontyme 2810]

I bought a small rib roast.. Maybe 4 bone on 12/20. It was set on styrofoam and cryo'd by the grocer. I knew I wasn't going to make it until mid late January so I just left it that way in the basement fridge. It's also still in the plastic grocery bag tied shut, and in one of the bottom meat drawers in the fridge. It stinks. Not vomit inducing but definitely rank. It's bad enough that I can smell it when I open the freezer. This is fine right? I'm ok trimming any grey off and still roasting it? 

[Anastasis 23469]

Go for it. Report back with pics. 

[Sam Lin 3555]

It is most definitely trash.

[DDD Dad 14332]

I bought a small rib roast.. Maybe 4 bone on 12/20. It was set on styrofoam and cryo'd by the grocer. I knew I wasn't going to make it until mid late January so I just left it that way in the basement fridge. It's also still in the plastic grocery bag tied shut, and in one of the bottom meat drawers in the fridge. It stinks. Not vomit inducing but definitely rank. It's bad enough that I can smell it when I open the freezer. This is fine right? I'm ok trimming any grey off and still roasting it? 

Might want to have poison control on speed dial.

[Baboontyme 2810]

It was funky as fuck. Cleaned it up. Cooking it tomorrow.

 

[WhatTheBuck 28776]

Good thing that plastic grocery bag was tied shut. 

[Buzzrock 14918]

Subscribed

[Sam Lin 3555]

Dude, no one here is kidding, be careful eating that (don't eat that!!). You didn't wet age it, cryo was opened and shrink wrapped, and the twine on it means maybe the bones were cut off and tied back on, exposing some interior of the meat. Even if not, it's been exposed to bacteria and then repacked. You didn't dry age it, the saran wrap means moisture was trapped. You basically incubated bacteria in a wet environment on it for weeks. The smell and color are both clear warning signs.

[Anastasis 23469]

I still say go for it and report back. Make sure the shitter is functioning and you have lots of tp and some pedialyte on hand. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Anastasis

[horn4life 3760]

I have researched this before.  And overall, it's a waste of time, and good meat. 

I think this thread, as well as the Cheese Enchilada and Chili threads really should be sponsored by Charmin.

[Baboontyme 2810]

5 hours ago, Sam Lin said:

Dude, no one here is kidding, be careful eating that (don't eat that!!). You didn't wet age it, cryo was opened and shrink wrapped, and the twine on it means maybe the bones were cut off and tied back on, exposing some interior of the meat. Even if not, it's been exposed to bacteria and then repacked. You didn't dry age it, the saran wrap means moisture was trapped. You basically incubated bacteria in a wet environment on it for weeks. The smell and color are both clear warning signs.

Thanks Sam, glad I checked the thread again. I figured surly was just being surly. Luckily it was on sale and I only wasted $50. If I cut away all of the exterior can I use the meat for anything? Grind it? 

[TonyTexas 10510]

4 minutes ago, Baboontyme said:

Thanks Sam, glad I checked the thread again. I figured surly was just being surly. Luckily it was on sale and I only wasted $50. If I cut away all of the exterior can I use the meat for anything? Grind it? 

Does your grinder have a bacteria removal attachment? If so, you’re good to go.