dry-aging is the process of removing moisture from the product and allowing
the lipids within the muscle to break down slowly over time it's kind of a
controlled deterioration of the muscle to get something that's much more tender
and that actually goes through a flavor transformation which we think is really
important dry aging is expensive it's luxurious
but it just tastes incredible I mean that's that's that's why we go through
the trouble that's why we spend the extra money at Oak Steakhouse our flavor
profile that we've sort of gravitated to it's pretty full-bodied dry its flavor
its adults-only it's not for kids first-timers ahead try dry aged
sometimes it's a little too much for them like I said it's not for everyone
it really isn't it's it's a experience steak eaters it's almost become generic
to describe it as sort of the notes of blue cheese but that is precisely what
it is and in fact if you look at a majestic aging loin or a rib of beef you
will see those veins that you get in blue cheese working their way through
and that is the same mold and it does indeed have the same flavor profile
during the dry aging process you're taking the natural enzymes in the meat
that would be active whether they're dry aging or wet aging what engines just in
a bag but dry aging you're taking the meat and you're putting it out into an
open-air environment so the natural enzymes are breaking down the muscle
tissue making it more tender however the cool part about dry aging is that you're
allowing other environmental impact to be had upon that piece of meat the notes
that you get from dry aging the flavor notes the aromatics are likely going to
be imparted by the different molds and yeasts that are going to land on the
meat and start populating it one type of mold that we know that we're finding on
there is Penicillium nalchi events say it's a mold that's a very white powdery
mold that you're gonna find oftentimes on salami we're likely going to be
finding some other molds common in the culinary world the Penicillium Roquefort
i which is going to be found in blue cheese
you're going to likely find yeasts which are part of the fungal Kingdom in
particular possibly Saccharomyces Cerevisiae which is used for brewing and baking
now the controls that we can incorporate into dry aging are often going to be
temperature number one it's very easy to control temperature for the most part
but then we try to control humidity somewhat to slow the migration of the
moisture or get the right amount of migration of moisture during the dry
aging process temperature in here ranges somewhere between thirty seven thirty
eight degrees on average it's definitely not freezing freezing would stop all the
bacterial activity and stop the aging process so we don't want to ever do that
temperature is important because we want to age product to 30, 40, 45 days and in
order to do that you definitely have to have temperature low enough otherwise
you'll end up with spoilage and something that spoils as opposed to
aging correctly.
I don't recommend just anybody taking a piece of meat put it in
a refrigerator because you're not going to have the air movement that's
necessary to get that uniform migration of the moisture out of the
meat. The folks that do dry aging on a large scale they're truly artists. From
the meat science perspective I get a lot of questions you know tell me the
science of dry aged and I can tell you what has happened but I can't
necessarily tell you what's going to happen. That's kind of the cool part
about dry aged meats it's going to be different no matter where you go or what
you do it's different in every environment and you are left to the
environment and and what it's going to impart into the flavors
right now we have about 4,200 pieces of beef in here well north of 90,000 pounds
and close to $900,000 in values so it's a this is more than just an avocation
this is a labor of love but it's a it's a financial risk/reward game as well I
think it's very hard to replicate a room this size with this much beef you try to
dry aged 10 or 12 pieces of meat in a small box it's never going to have the
same patina that a room like this with 4,000 plus piece of meat will have we
have a really perfect environment here for this it's built for this it's what
we do and I don't know that many restaurants can really replicate exactly
what we do here different rooms respond very differently to beef you go to the
de Braga room for example and it's absolutely cavernous its massive and
when you have that much volume paradoxically it's easy to control than
if you have a microclimate right where the slightest variation will completely
throw off the room that room is so big that they have much more they have a
little bit more leeway let's say it's also among the cleanest rooms like you
go to the old school like an old-school steakhouse where there's like wood
everywhere caught borderlining I like the state you know the guy looks as dry
as the steaks he's pulling off so you know when you walk into the doors of
steak houses it's like the first thing that hits you is that from the Aged box
but the Braga is not like that I mean there you get those subtle notes but
it's it's a very it's almost like we're walking into a science lab you know and
I think that that's how the modern butcher needs to approach dry-aging if
you'll get into Dre G now don't build a wooden box you know we're in the 21st
century it's like into being in a cheese locker
where you have tons of cheese and you walk in and you put a fresh piece of
cheese in there and all the bacteria in that room start to work on the new
cheese that you bring in same here in a week we'll put up seven eight hundred a
thousand pieces of meat of a new meat in here so we're introducing a ton of
humidity which is why we have the high speed fans that that adds to our
humidity level naturally just by the amount of meat we put in every single
week
anytime you start off with a premium product you're gonna have a premium
results with the marbling and the fat content of a prime you're going to get
more flavor as a dry ages so the marbling allows the penetration the fat
itself is soft the tissue it's more permanent all that and a almonds becomes
a conduit for those flavors marbling for me is the most important criteria if you
have a really great piece of marbled beef and you aged it correctly you
should have a great great finished end product for sure you can get kind of
floral notes you can get almost even an alcoholic note when you first cut into
it it's a beautiful smell that comes off of these those aromatics are still in
the meat and so when you cook me you're waking up the molecules that are there
you're exciting the molecules with the heat and that's what comes up to our
noses that's what comes up to our olfactory senses and that's where dry
aging really takes this big leap beyond just conventional aging of meat you
really get that intense flavor not all folks like that intense flavor but we're
finding a lot of people do so I often draw the comparison of the difference
between dry aged beef and wet aged beef as a difference been grape juice in wine
and wine is from the same liquid yet because it's fermented it's developed
complex flavors far beyond regular grape juice regular egg juice is delicious
it's very sweet it's refreshing but it doesn't have a lot of complexity wet
aged beef is delicious I mean look who's gonna turn down a juicy hamburger but
when you're making a steak which is the most prized and important part of that
animal to elevate it with dry aging I think is the right way to really honor
that animal's life honor the process and honor the guests indeed a wet aged dude
there's times and I've got to have the dry hump chasing that flavor
they're both great but it's ooh they're both different platforms it's we're in
the golden age of dry aging people are pushing it 28 days is what you really
need right to get that steak to a to the proper tensile strength there is
in some imposition of flavor on that but the further you go the more desiccate
the meat becomes and the more profound and distinct the flavor is so I've had
steaks up to 420 days that are no longer beef
we like the 50-day 55:8 de-age that's the flavor that our clientele likes in
Charleston you get some of these ones that go a long time 90 days 85 days even
personally that's not the flavor profile that I'm looking for you know I think
it's important to remember that at one time all meat was dry aged they were
hanging whole caucuses that has the same effect as dry aging and now it's become
a bit perverse quite frankly when you're just taking short loins and rip sections
and dry aging them Drazen is new to a new generation of people who are
enjoying meat dry aging used to be what we always did prior to refrigeration
meat was always just kind of hung in open-air environments and there are
still countries that do that what's old is new and what's new is cool and that's
what we're having this resurgence in the meat community those who enjoy meat are
really starting to better understand the benefits of dry aged meat people are
looking for this next level of eating experience and that's what dry aging can
really bring to folks