Dry Ageing Beef at Home

 

The love going to a good steak house where they age their beef and then char grill. The meat is so tender and delicious. It’s worth paying the extra cash to get such perfection.

The thing is, the meat you get at the supermarket isn’t aged enough. Some butchers will dry age their meat for three to four weeks. It’s great to find a good butcher like that.

Over the past ten years or so I’ve taken to dry ageing my own beef at home. It’s a simple process and a nice way of ensuring you get that steak house flavour at home.

So here I’ll show you how I do it.  I’m not saying it is the best or only way but dry ageing beef at home like this has worked very well for me.

Which beef cuts can be used?

The answer is any. This is obviously an expensive joint of four rib but you could do the same with less expensive joints if you just want to try the method out.

A bit of warning…

You can see the results I got using this method. Dry ageing beef at home gets amazing flavour. But do this at your own risk.

As I said, I’ve been dry ageing my own beef for ten years but be careful. The meat should smell like well aged meat and not death. If yours doesn’t smell right, it isn’t.

The best way to dry age your meat is on a rubber rack. I’ve never got around to buying one so I wrap a metal rack with plastic and it works just fine. The most important thing is that the juices from the meat drip into the rock salt below. Never place your meat directly on a metal rack.

If you like this recipe, you might like to try some of these recipes too…

Slow cooked shredded beef tacos
Teriyaki marinade
Steak and stout pie

 

How To Dry Age Your Own Beef

Print

Ingredients

• 1 standing rib roast or other cut of your choice
• 4 cups - (1 litre) small rock salt
• 1 rubber rack or a metal rack rapped tightly with clingfilm. It is very important that the liquid from the meat can drain into the salt. It must not get caught on the plastic or it will mould.

Instructions

1. Pour the salt into a large tray and place the rack on top with the meat.
2. Place the meat in a fridge - preferably one that isn't used often. I only checked my beef once a week.
3. You want the temperature to be between 34 and 37F (2.2 and 3.3C).
4. While the meat stands there over the salt, it will lose about 20% of its weight as the liquid goes into the salt.
5. After 15 to 28 days ( the longer the better) trim of the hard black outer. You may think this sounds wasteful but believe me it's worth it. You will only need to trim about 3mm from the outside as it will be too dry and tough to eat.
6. What's inside is properly aged beef which you can cook as a rib roast or cut into the most awesome steaks you'll ever have the pleasure of enjoying.

 I hope you enjoy dry ageing beef at home. If you do try this method, leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.