jamie770•10d agoProlific Poster

TIL dry aging at home vs. buying pre-aged isn't even close

I tried doing my own dry age in a spare fridge I had. Umai bags, the whole thing. Did a ribeye for 30 days. Then I bought a piece from a shop in Austin that had been aged 45 days. My piece came out... okay. A little funky but not as tender. The shop piece was night and day better. I think my fridge wasn't keeping the humidity right, or maybe I didn't let it go long enough. Has anyone else tried the bags and had better luck?

4 comments

4 Comments

casey68210d ago

The Umai bags are tricky with humidity man. I did a 35 day strip in my basement fridge and it came out okay but not as good as the 40 day from my local butcher. The problem is those bags still let some moisture escape and most home fridges just dont hold humidity steady enough. You really need a dry aging fridge with a fan and a humidity controller. I bought a cheap wine fridge and rigged it up with a small fan and a salt bowl to control moisture. That made a HUGE difference. My 45 day ribeye from that setup was way closer to the shop quality but still not quite as tender. The shop has years of experience dialing in their process and thats hard to match.

fiona98510d ago

Oh wow, how'd you set up the humidity control with the salt bowl? Like just a bowl of salt sitting in there or something fancier?

kaih3610d ago

Funny how the cheap workaround always beats the expensive gear in the end.

tylerj2210d ago

Backed up EVERYTHING you just said with my own Umai bag disaster. I tried a 60 day boneless ribeye in my regular kitchen fridge and it came out with this nasty hard crust and a weird ammonia smell because the humidity was all over the place. The salt bowl trick is a GAMECHANGER though. I just put a shallow ceramic dish with plain kosher salt on the bottom shelf and it kept the moisture way more stable than I expected. My second attempt with the salt bowl was a 50 day strip that actually had that deep beefy funk you want. It still wasn't as buttery as the stuff from the high end butcher down the street but it was 90% there for like half the price. The frustrating thing is you have to tweak everything fridge by fridge.