I unpacked the NY strip today after 28 days in the fridge.
As expected, it had formed a hard bark covering the outside. I trimmed this off for the most part, leaving some to be trimmed before cooking. I did this to reduce the amount of waste.
28 days is about the bottom end of the suggested aging time but I pulled this because I wasn't happy with the seal I got and, let's be honest, curiosity was killing me. I cooked one steak in a frying pan and the other on the grill. Both were very good, but the short aging time imparted only a slight flavor change.
I'm going to let the ribeye go for 45 days which seems to be where the flavors really develop.
I'm not a biologist or chemist, so I'm not going to try to defend the science involved.
Traditional dry aging involves putting a sub-primal or primal cut of beef in a cold room under controlled humidity. Over time, the beef loses moisture and naturally occurring enzymes cause chemical changes in the meat that affect flavor and texture. The beef will typically loose 30% of its weight due to water and trimming loss, this contributes to the advanced cost of dry aged beef.
Wet aging is just letting the meat sit in the cryovac bag for a period of time. Because the cryovac bag is not water permeable, the aging process and the result are different.
The UMAI bags are a thin, single-ply membrane that is water permeable. A vacuum sealer is used to draw the bag tight to the surface of the meat and this is where some people get confused and think that this is wet aging. The vacuum sealer is just to get the membrane in contact with the meat so the drying process can begin.
So how did it work?
The bags are very sensitive to any wetness at the seal area. I didn't get a good seal on the NY strip because I was being dumb. There are videos suggesting you seal each corner of the bag, leaving a four inch section to be sealed for the final. I didn't do this on the NY and had problems getting a good bond.
I'd learned my lesson by the time I did the ribeye and that one went perfectly.
You can see in the pics that I used my regular fridge. this worked well as long as you have room for 25 pounds of meat laying around in there. There would be a faint smell when opening the door after the fridge had been closed overnight but it wasn't anything unpleasant.
I've got two Capicola's in bags right now. Those need 90 days or so. I'm also going to do some fermented salami using the narrow tubes offered by UMAI.
Sorry about the limited pics. there are a bunch of Youtube videos from various sources that illustrate my experience.
I'm obviously happy with the results and I'll let you know how the rest of the experiment goes.
