How to Dry-Age Steak
Adding aged steak to your menu will make your restaurant stand out against others, attracting more customers. New customers will be intrigued by its distinctive flavor profile and tenderness while food connoisseurs will be excited to taste your chef’s take on aged steak.
There are two ways that you can age steak: dry-aging and wet-aging. Dry-aging steak involves hanging cuts of beef at a specific temperature just above freezing in a controlled refrigerator or dry-ager. Wet-aging is when the steak is sealed in a vacuumed-packed plastic. While both achieve the iconic tenderness of aged beef, it’s dry-aging that creates the unique flavor profile associated with aging.
How Dry-Aging Works
During the dry-aging process, moisture is drawn out of the beef and redistributed through the cut. This is what creates the dense beef flavor with nutty and rich notes. The process also causes the natural enzymes to break down, making the steak tender. The entire aging process can vary between 14 to 240 days, although the sweet spot for today’s dry-aged steak connoisseurs seems to be between 30 to 45 days.
A majority of dry-aging occurs behind the scenes in warehouses and cold rooms, away from the public viewing and your chef’s creative control. But, by bringing the dry-aging process into your restaurant where your customers can see the process and your chef can tend to the beef throughout the length of the process, you provide customers with a great dry-aged steak and experience.
The Perfect Dry-Aged Steak
To provide dry-aged beef that does not rot but rather harnesses the rich, nutty taste, you have to age steak in optimal conditions. When you bring the aging process into your restaurant, you’ll need a dry-ager or chamber built for dry-aging steak. The aging chamber will need the right specifications to create an appetizing, palpable dry-aged steak. Important factors to consider when choosing the right equipment include:
Maintain an 80% humidity level
A climate that falls between 33.8- and 37.4-degrees Fahrenheit
An advanced ventilation system to circulate fresh air and maintain the perfect climate
Antibacterial environment to enhance the flavor profile.
High-Quality, Dry-Aged Steak with The Aging Room Chamber
The Aging Room not only provides your restaurant with a beautiful display for customers to see, but it is also a vetted, patented chamber that helps create the perfect dry-aged steak. Our chamber is equipped with an illuminated wall of Himalayan salt that draws the eyes of customers and contributes to the dry-aging process by adding flavor and aroma to the dry-aged steak.
Built with advanced technology to maintain the correct environment for aging beef, we believe that premium products will attract premium customers. With the perfect, advanced, and controlled chamber to create the ultimate aging experience, you’ll be able to offer customers an aged steak that brings them back again.
Learn more about how to dry age steak and our technology and how our chamber successfully dry-ages steak.
