Dry-Aging Beef at Home trend &concept – why it didn't find the way to the retail chains and to the meat industry?
Dry-Aging Beef at Home trend &concept – why it didn't find the way to the retail chains and to the meat industry? In 2011 The National Restaurant Association announced the recipients of its first annual Food & Beverage Product Innovations Awards, which recognize progressive food and beverage products that will make a significant impact in the restaurant industry. In the list of the Innovations Award recipients you can see: DrybagSteak, LLC – UMAI DrybagSteak. What do you think about Dry-Aging Beef at Home trend? What happened with the Dry-Aging bags market since 2011? What do you think about possibility of using the same method in industrial production of the Dry-Aging Beef? The most interesting issue for me is : Why the meat producers didn't offer this solution to the retail as an innovative trend: "By vacuum packed fresh meat - Keep it in your regular fridge / Get most flavor for your steaks - SAVE Your Money". When and who will the flexible film supplier& meat producer that will take the Dry-Aging bags & packages trend to the next stage? http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html
seriouseats.com•This guide will show you exactly how to dry-age at home, how relatively simple it is, and how it can vastly improve the eating quality of your steaks and roasts unt
My quality assurance manager George use to dry age white cow strips ( Holstein beef). One day he invited me and the misses up his place and he grilled them and I've got to tell you it wasn't bad for cow beef. You will find dry aging of beef mostly in trendy restaurants, at a ridiculous high prices. Like good wine you must require a taste for it. Many people just can't handle the mature-taste. George use to start with a cryovac strip and leave it in his refrigerator for 30 days. Then take it out of the bag, when the wife wasn't around because of the strong odor. Then he would pat it dry put it back in the fridge, age it another two weeks until there was a crust on it. Then he would cut away the crust and you would have a piece of beef that was as "tender as a mothers love".
Now for the price of it. He started out with paying $2.50 per pound (2000) prices. And when he was done his aging yield loss wa about 40% which made the strip cost over $4.00 per pound.
So lets say you did that today with whole strips running around 6.50 per lb. your aged cost will be near $15 per lb. That's because the native beef strip will have a yield loss of fat trim before you reach the aging yield loss. Who knows it could be as high as 50% of the original weight. The cow beef has only traces of fat thus, now loss due to fat trim.
I was taught that dry ageing beef produces the best results when the beef is hung on the bone. I have been experimenting with dry ageing beef for many years and I have tested many products including Umai bags. The most recent experiments have been done by controlling the atmosphere that the beef is stored in and this produced outstanding results and a significant reduction in weight loss.(Please refer to my website allmattersmeat.com) keeping the beef on the bone reduces the amount of surface area that is exposed to the drying action and this again reduces trimming. The ageing period is also dependent on the quality of the beef in the first place and is not an exact science.
Most my career we dry aged hanging in the cooler, While I have enjoyed wet age I'm basically a dry age man. This in home dry aging I think would be a good way to sell larger items like whole bottoms or whole rib eyes. It would be profitable if you push it and get your customers use to it