The food lab better home cooking through science ( PDFDrive ) 353
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thebeginning,lowerastheagingprogressed).
Ifoundthatthemoreprotectionyouhave,thebetteryour
finalyield.Whydoesexteriorprotectionmatterwhenaging
meat? Because when you dry-age meat for any length of
timethat’senoughtomakeadifference,theexteriorlayers
get completely desiccated and so must be trimmed away.
The less protected the “good” meat, the more of it you’ll
havetothrowinthetrash.
Providedyoustartwitha109Aoranothercutwiththefat
capintact,youryieldwillamounttobasicallytheequivalent
of a regular roast. If you imagine your prime rib as a long
cylinder,theonlymeatyou’llenduplosingisateitherend.
Thefatcapandboneswillcompletelyprotectthesides.
WhatCausesFlavorChangesDuringDry-Aging?
Q:Soagedmeatdoesn’treallylosemuchmoisture.But
waitaminute,haven’tIreadthatagedsteakscanloseup
to30percentoftheirweightinwater?Isn’tthatoneof
thereasonswhyagedsteakissoexpensive?
Don’tbelieveeverythingyouread.That30percentfigureis
deceptive at best and an outright lie at worst.Yes, it’s true
that if you dry-age an untrimmed, bone-on, fat-cap-intact
primerib,you’llenduplosingabout30percentofitstotal
weightoverthecourseof21to30daysorso.What“they”
don’t tell you is that the weight is almost exclusively lost
from the outer layers—that is, the portion of the meat that
would be trimmed off anyway, regardless of whether it is
agedornot.
Hasitneverstruckyouasjustalittlebitoddthattheaged
rib-eyesteaksinthebutcher’sdisplaycasearen’t30percent
smallerthanthefreshrib-eyesonthedisplay?Orthataged
bone-in steaks are not stretching and pulling away from
their bones? (I mean, surely the bones aren’t shrinking as
well,arethey?)
The fact is, with the exception of the cut faces that will
needtobetrimmedoff,theedibleportionofanagedprime
ribisprettymuchidenticaltothatofafreshprimerib.
Q:OK,let’ssayI’mnowconvincedaboutthat.Doesthat
meanthatthewholeideathat“themeatflavoris
concentrated”inanagedsteakbecauseofdehydrationis
alsofalse?
I’mafraidso.It’sagreatideaintheory,butthefactsdon’t
supportit.
First,there’ssimplevisualinspection:atrimmedsteakcut
fromanagedpieceofbeefisprettymuchthesamesizeasa
trimmedsteakcutfromafreshpieceofbeef.
Next, I measured the density of beef aged to various
degreesagainstcompletelyfreshmeat.Todothis,Icutout
chunks of meat of identical weights from the centers of rib
eyes aged to various degrees, making sure to avoid any
largeswathsoffat.Ithensubmergedeachchunkofmeatin
waterandmeasureditsdisplacement.WhatIfoundwasthat
meatagedfor21daysdisplacedabout4percentlessliquid
thancompletelyfreshmeat—aslightincrease,butnotmuch.
Meat aged all the way up to 60 days displaced a total of 5
percentless—showingthatthevastmajorityofmoistureloss
occursinthefirstthreeweeks.
What’s more, once the meat was cooked, these
differences in density completely disappeared. That is, the
