I've dry-aged quite a few things including prime bone-in ribeyes,
beautiful strip loin which I cut them into incredible New York strip steaks
and of course we can't forget the queen of all meats picanha which I did for a
hundred days, that is just insane. And most of my experience with dry-aged has
been wonderful and one of my favorite things to do with beef. If you never had
dry aged before it is hard to understand the reason why we go through this entire
process but always in the end it leaves you wanting more every single time .
I even dry aged a brisket for 60 days and it was probably one of the most
delicious and surprising results I've ever had with this dry aging stuff.
And today I'm going to try to dry age one of the most popular cuts there is; it is
the filet mignon which comes from the tenderloin.
Filet mignon is already tender as is and my idea with this experiment is to find
out if it is worth dry aging it or not because usually dry age does two things
one it makes the meat a lot tender and you also changes slightly the flavor
profile of the meat. So I'm really excited to find out how this is gonna
turn out. So let's do it!
I started with a whole tenderloin as you can see it is not trimmed. I got it from
sterling silver premium meats. It is very important that you use an untrimmed
tenderloin because when you were dry aging you will create a crust and you
want all that extra fat and silver skin to be there before dry aging. To dry
age it I am using a special bag it is called UMAI Dry I hate to call it a bag
because it is not just a regular standard bag that you have at home.
UMAI actually calls them a membrane. And what this bag does it allows moisture
out without allowing any of the bad stuff to go in so in essence it
evaporates all the moisture out of the meat tenderizing the meat and also
changing the flavor profile. And when you open the bag it comes with everything
that you need in the kit. It is simple and easy to use.
Once that's done dry it well and you are ready to start dry aging .You can use a
regular cutting board but I prefer aluminum paper to make everything easier.
Try to keep everything as clean as possible I use gloves and I recommend it.
Then the next step is pretty easy just transfer directly into the UMAI bag it is
important to keep the meat moist. Remember this is a membrane and the
moisture will help it stick to the meat this will give you a much better result.
Once the meat has stuck into the membrane it is ok to wipe out the excess,
but never on the meat itself. The kit comes with this special little fabric
that allows you to suck all the air out with your vacuum sealer. Once the air has
been removed it is important to seal it twice. Right after that just fold all the
additional parts. Now I'm afraid that my tenderloin would just lay flat
completely and then when I cut it open I won't have perfect round shapes so for
that reason I'm tying it up so that it keeps its shape. Once that was done I
transferred it to a cooling rack so that the air can circulate throughout the
entire thing allowing it to dry from the top and bottom in all sides. Now when I
did this I had a little bit of extra air towards the edges it was a simple fix, I
just cut it out pushed all the air out as much as I could and resealed it with
my vacuum sealer. After that my tenderloin was ready to be dry-aged and
all there's left to do is put in on my regular refrigerator for a total of 35 days.
After 35 days this is what it looks like. As you can see the meat shrink quite a
bit. Tying the tenderloin was a perfect decision because he kept its round shape.
I removed all the butcher's twine and opened it up. As expected it had a
wonderful smell, the smell of dry aged which is difficult to explain.
Now all there's left to do is cut him into steaks check it out .
As you can see, they turn out as good as it gets and I'm very pleased with these results. To do a real
fair comparison I am getting another tenderloin. I want to compare and see if
there's a lot of difference between a fresh tenderloin and a dry aged
tenderloin. I'm looking for tenderness and flavor. So I quickly trimmed this one
up and I put one next to the other and here you can really tell the difference
between them. Check it out.
Once that was done I cut the fresh one into beautiful
filet mignons and all my beautiful steaks were ready
Then I had a real hard choice which is to choose which ones to try it out today.
So I went with the best ones I could find and these are today's contenders.
As you can see the intramuscular fat is quite similar so this is gonna be a good
test. Then I quickly removed all the trimmings from the dry aged and I was
left with two beautiful steaks.
To really taste the profile of the meat I am not
using any garlic powder or pepper. I'm only seasoning with salt and basting
it a little bit with regular standard unsalted butter. I'm using regular table
salt so that the penetration of the salt can be as quick as possible. Today I'm
going to be cooking the steaks in direct heat instead of reverse sear. I'm first
going to put a beautiful sear on them and then slowly cook them until they
come unto an internal temperature of a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
But enough talking it is time to cook them. So let's do it!
I'm going, I'm ready to go man. Are you ready to go Angel? My nephew Angel
he's ready to go for this one and I don't blame him. Today I use a different
technique everybody and the reason I use a different technique which is just a
regular way you normally cook a steak because I wanted to get a very nice and
strong sear on these filet mignons. See that color? Really nice on the outside.
Very good. Maybe wanna eat fast. You hungry? Let's gooooo!
Okay so we have our very
first steak here. I want to know if there's any difference for you. So what's
this one? This one I'm not gonna tell you we're gonna tell you after all right so
that we can find out if there's a difference on taste profile my friend.
Cheers! Let's go for it.
hmm lord have mercy
Wow I think I like this one. You think you like this one? I think I like this one bro.
All right enough talking you ready for the second one?
Let's go oh my god this one is way okay enough talking cheers buddy.
What!
What! What is this Angel?
All right bro. Okay which one do you think it's better more tender and
different flavor profile? This one is more tender. Definitely this one is like
chewing I would say that texture of jello. Almost. Yeah like jello you
bite on it there is zero resistance. I think it's just a little bit tougher
than jello I could break jello with my tongue. Yeah I think we might be able to break it with
you in with your tongue on this one. But the crust is so pronounced right I've
got a really good sear on that one. right this one here is
do you think it's so soft that is too soft?
No no no it's perfect. It's perfect, you know when I started this
experiment I really thought that it's not worth, by the way this is dry-aged Angel.
We got the dry-aged filet mignon versus a traditional filet mignon. So is it
worth dry-aging a filet mignon? Yes I agree with his a silent man right now. It
is worth dry-aging. As long as you'll do it
untrimmed if you get a tenderloin that is already trimmed I think you're gonna
have too much loss but if it's untrimmed it's good. Yes? I think that if you keep
explaining the flavor uh-huh. You're gonna keep finishing? Im gonna keep eating.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video if you do enjoy this video make sure you give
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is always in the description down below thank you so much for watching and we'll
see you guys on the next one take care everybody. Bye bye
Alright bro. Hold on bro we gotta share!
Bro, I have a knife tranquilo I have a knife. I have, I have teeth! You have teeth? Ha, ha!