Old timer at the shop set me straight on beef aging

Been doing this 8 years, thought I had aging down pat. Guy who's been cutting since the 70s watched me trim a ribeye and said 'that's not aged, that's just dry.' He showed me how the moisture loss changes the texture completely different from just hanging it. Took a primal he had going 45 days and the difference in tenderness was night and day. Any of you guys actually track humidity in your coolers or just go by days?

2 comments

2 Comments

wader7110d ago

Track your humidity, not just days. That old timer is spot on. If your cooler runs too dry you get a tough bark on the outside but the inside barely changes. Keep it around 75-80% for the first 3 weeks then bump it down to 70% for the rest. I use a cheap digital hygrometer in my walk-in and check it twice a week. The difference between 45 days at 65% versus 75% humidity is MASSIVE on the final texture. You'll lose more weight but the tenderness and that concentrated beef flavor makes it worth every gram.

lewis.brian10d ago

Yeah but @wader71, you're mixing up two different kinds of cure. The humidity advice is solid for whole muscle like a brisket or eye of round. But if you're doing ground meat like summer sausage or snack sticks, that high humidity early on just makes the casing slip off and ruins the bind. I learned that the hard way with my first batch of landjaegers. Lost a third of them because the casings got loose and the meat pulled away from the edges. You want to keep ground stuff around 65% the whole way through, not 75. Different animals, different rules.