A petty age never injure anyone—unless nosotros're talking well-nigh our increasingly creaky knees and ever-more foggy memory, or sorer-past-the-day lower backs. Okay, scratch that. For u.s.a. mortals, age hurts, menses. But when information technology comes to such culinary delights as wine, cheese, and red meat, historic period has the power to enhance flavor and deepen our enjoyment.

This is especially the example for dry-aged beef, which is known for a richer flavour and more tender texture—too as a heftier cost tag—than its fresh-cutting counterparts. But what is it about dry-aging that works such magic on meat?

Even if you lot appreciate what a dry-aged steak does for your tastebuds, the nuances about how it delivers such a transcendent experience may escape y'all. That'south why, with the assistance of food scientists and chefs, we're unpacking exactly what dry-aged beef is and how dry out-aging works.

What is dry aging?

"An unsexy way to explicate it is that dry out-aging, in a nutshell, is a controlled disuse process," says Katie Flannery, butcher and COO at Flannery Beef. "Y'all're exposing the subprimals to oxygen, which allows natural enzymes within the meat work," she says. "They're aerobic bacteria, and so they demand oxygen to survive. They come alive and start breaking downwardly the molecular bonds of meat." This, in turn, alters the flavour and texture of the cut.

What dry aging looks like is literally a room full of moldy carcasses. In the dry out-aging process, meat hangs in a humidity-controlled environment in a manner that exposes all of its sides with unimpeded airflow around the entire cut. "And then there'southward the good mold that finds its way onto steaks, which will slowly start to break down and increase the amount of evaporation," says Chris Pandel, executive chef at Swift and Sons in Chicago. "You're puling moisture from the meats over fourth dimension. As that happens the mold will extend its life and grow. It'due south like the mold on blue cheese—it'due south adept mold cracking mold."

Of course, before that slab of beef makes it to your plate, all of the mold will be trimmed away, leaving just "tenderized, funky, delicious meat," Pandel says. He describes the season of dry-anile meat every bit having a nuttiness to it that yous won't get in a wet-anile steak. Also, information technology'll be more tender and have a different mouthfeel.

Swift & Sons steakhouse

Steak from Pandel's Swift & Son's Swift & Sons

How does dry-aging modify the taste and texture of meat?

Moisture loss is one aspect that changes the flavor of dry out-anile meat. "What that does is substantially concentrate the remainder of the tissue," says Harold McGee, food scientist and author of Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. "Meat is about 75 percentage water. If you lose a few percentage to evaporation … what'due south left volition be more full-bodied, and so the season volition exist more than full-bodied."

For those who know their way effectually a kitchen, Flannery likens the procedure to reducing a stock to a demi-glace. "Yous have that pot on your stovetop. As more than and more moisture evaporates, the flavor of the liquid is getting more and more concentrated. With beefiness, as water evaporates, the natural beef flavor intensifies," she says.

Only chemical changes also touch the flavor. "During the aging period, some of the flavor compounds and other molecules in the meat undergo chemical change that will increase some flavor components while reducing others," says Joe Regenstein, Professor in the Department of Food Science at Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Muscle cells are made of lots of different materials, and chief amid them are the proteins that enable the muscles to contract, and the molecules that fuel this procedure, such as glycogen, Deoxyribonucleic acid and RNA. During dry-crumbling, these big, flavorless molecules are cleaved down into smaller, flavorful fragments, explains McGee.

"All of those molecules are relatively large, and when they're broken down by the enzyme action, they form fragments that are more flavorful than the original large molecules," he says. "Some proteins get broken downward into amino acids. They can be a piddling biting, savory, such equally in MSG, and the Dna/RNA material tin get broken into other molecules that are savory and enhance the savoriness of MSG. And glycogen broken into sugars which are sweet."

Dry aging transforms the texture of meat every bit well. "Meat has a very complex internal structure that tin can be hard to seize with teeth through. By breaking some of these proteins down, the teeth can now more than easily get through the meat," Regenstein says.

What are the best cuts of dry-aged meats?

Entire primals, rather than single steaks are dry-aged, but to be a good candidate for dry-aging requires a good protective covering of os or fat. This means there's less surface surface area that needs to exist trimmed abroad later. "Filets tend not to be anile considering in that location's no bone or fat protecting information technology, Flannery says. Dry-aging is wasteful because every single side of meat that is exposed to air volition be breaking down faster than the meat on the inside." Bone-in New York strip or ribeye are adept contenders for dry-aging, Pandel says.

45-day dry aged rib eye steak

Ribeye is a great cut to dry out age. Photo: Kevin Marple

What's the ideal time to dry-age meat?

The ideal length of time for dry out-aging meat actually comes downward to individual taste. For Flannery, the sweet spot is around thirty to 35 days. "For retail customers, we get 35 days, but for restaurant customers we become 18 to xx," she says. "That's because in the restaurant industry, if a diner isn't familiar with dry-aged beef, their first reaction might be to think that something is off."

Pandel says he likes meat that'southward been aged around 45 days. "You tin tell it'southward been aged, simply it'south not unpleasant," he says. "We've gone further. In running a steakhouse it'southward personal preference. Some folks like it really funky, but for some people it's too gnarly."

And the longer you go, the funkier the flavor volition become. "Dry-aged meat does have a unique smell and flavor. Funky is a good style to describe it," she says. "It's a more rich flavor upwards until the xxx-24-hour interval point. When you become farther than that, and if you go really far out, like 60 to 90 days, you develop a serious blue cheese funk to it. It volition odor remarkably like blue cheese."

Why Is Dry out-Aged Meat More than Expensive?

With a dry-aged descriptor comes a steeper price tag—but it'south for more than just the fancy moniker. "In that location'south a reaction to higher prices without fully understanding why dry-aged meat is more expensive," Flannery says. "We're not slapping some other l per centum to the cost because we feel like it. Information technology'south a more costly product to produce."

Betwixt whittling away the moldy parts and the moisture evaporation, you tin can lose up to 50 percentage of the primal'south original weight, Flannery explains. That means if your butcher bought 10 pounds of meat, she might only take five pounds left to sell past the time information technology'due south been aged, substantially doubling what she paid for it.

steak beef aging room

Adam Perry Lang in his aging room. Photograph: courtesy Josh Telles

Dry-Crumbling Vs. "Wet-Crumbling"

Occasionally, you may also hear the words "wet-aged" used depict a piece of meat. Wet-aging describes meat that has been anile in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag. "The meat is held for weeks or months enclosed in a plastic bag that prevents evaporation from taking place, and then y'all don't get the same loss of water and don't get the aforementioned concentration of flavour," McGee says.

"I'll just say it: Moisture-crumbling is bullshit. It's basically to become the word "aging" on a product without incurring the massive loss of dry-aging," Flannery says. "Considering dry-aging so expensive is one reason people push wet-aging. There'southward no trim loss and no moisture loss. Just you accept that absurd cache of information technology being aged."

Moisture-aging won't deliver the nutty season or aforementioned mouthfeel as a dry-aged steak. "You tin't fake dry-anile. You can't condense time. Information technology's a really unique product," Flannery says.

Dry crumbling at home

Most professionals will tell you lot to not dry historic period at home, but what else would professionals say? However, they make a very compelling instance when it comes to season and even safety. Dry aging is a controlled fermentation, which René Redzepi and David Zilber of Noma  showed you tin can do at home, only with necessary precautions and equipment. With dry aging steak, the trouble people run into is that they don't realize the home refrigerator doesn't actually work, for a couple reasons. Yous want your dry-crumbling fridge to have a more than consistent temperature and air flow than your dwelling refrigerator offers. Also, you don't desire anything else in the fridge, because over time the steak will start absorbing the flavors of the other food inside the old icebox with information technology. So when the steak actually has time to undergo the enzymatic reaction that makes dry-aged steak so delicious, it will start to take a muddled, stale season because of what it has absorbed in the fridge. That doesn't hateful you can't dry age at home. The central is getting a dedicated dry-aging fridge that will eliminate all the aforementioned challenges. And instead of getting individual cuts, past large slab that allows you lot to trim the meat earlier slicing into individual steaks. Then once again, you could always only order the beef already aged by an online purveyor and save yourself the fourth dimension.