When you order your steaks online with Designer Beef, you have the choice to have your ground beef dry-aged to enhance the meat’s flavor.
Introduction
Just like fine wine, steaks can get better with age. When beef is aged correctly, you can get a cut of steak that’s more tender in texture and richer in flavor than the other fresh cuts available at the grocery store. True, it does cost more—but for good reason. Dry-aging beef is a process that takes more than a month. But trust us, and other meat lovers and grill enthusiasts, that the experience of dry-aged beef is well worth a try. Read on to see what dry-aged steaks are and see why they are worth the splurge.
What is dry-aging?
A dry-aged steak is a cut of beef that is left hanging fresh in an uncovered, temperature and humidity-controlled room. Dry-aging meat requires a spacious facility and expensive equipment to dry-age the meat correctly and to keep it from spoiling. This is one of the reasons why you can only find dry-aged steaks at specialty steak houses, butcher shops, and specialty ranches such as Designer Beef. The beef is left in that space from a few weeks to about 50 days. During the dry-aging process, the meat becomes more tender and takes on a different, concentrated flavor that is superior tasting to beef that has not been dry-aged.
How does dry-aging change the taste and texture of meat?
During the time the steak is in the controlled room, the meat is given enough time for the enzymes to break down the connective tissues in the muscles, creating a more tender steak for eating.
The meat also goes through a major flavor transformation. The moisture from the meat is slowly drawn out, losing a third of its initial water volume. This makes for a cut of meat more concentrated in flavor, giving it a more beefy taste.
A crust will also begin to form during the dry-aging process. The crust helps create a richer piece of steak by sealing the flavors in the meat. This crust is not edible so it’s removed before it is packed and delivered to customers.
The result of a dry-aged steak is a smaller, more brown, and rich piece of steak. A properly aged steak practically melts in your mouth!
What Cuts of Meat Can be Dry Aged?
Aside from the obvious cuts of meat like New York Strip, boneless ribeye, and Sirloin, you can also get ground beef for hamburgers dry-aged! Most butchers and commercial meat processing plants don’t have this as an option but Designer Beef allows you to dry-age your hamburger meat too.
Flavor varies from different breeds, feed programs, and lifestyles. However, no matter what customizations you choose, aging beef for this amount of time creates an incredibly tender steak with a strong beef bullion and a slight blue cheese flavor.
Is dry-aged meat worth the splurge?
If you want to level up your dining experience by bringing the premium steak house experience home, then yes, dry-aged beef is worth the splurge! A properly dry-aged steak will be richer, extremely tender, and flavorful—something meat lovers will surely enjoy. The flavor and texture payoff is far superior to wet-aged meat from the supermarket fridges. You won’t regret dry-aged beef from Designer Beef.
