- Today on Prime Time,
dry-aged pork porterhouse.
(intense music)
- This is something we never see on a menu at a steakhouse.
- Pork is generally undervalued,
deserves to be on a menu at a steak house
right next to that New York Strip or your rib-eye.
If we're going to experiment dry-aging pork,
what sounds optimal to you?
- 28 days, you don't get the funk or umami from dry aging
but you get a really crisp, clear picture
of the product you just got from the farm.
- I think we can take the pork that far,
but we've never really done that before.
- Let's do it.
We're talking steakhouse cuts.
We're talking name brand recognition.
Let's focus on the porterhouse.
- Makes sense.
Let's do it.
- All right.
So we have our fresh product here.
We have a half a pig
from Gibson Family Farm, hundred percent Berkshire.
So we're going to walk through the butchering process.
- First thing we want to do is separate the shoulder.
So we want to do one, two, three, four, five
and then we're going to separate the ham
right around the hip bone,
what is called the H bone right here
to keep that sirloin on and preserve our pork porterhouse.
We're just going to make our line
going up to where we're going to use the saw.
You just kind of line that up,
and with the saw, you always want to do
the least amount of cutting that you can.
So as soon as you hear it hitting flesh, take it out.
So now we can cut and you want to cut away from yourself.
I've learned this lesson many times the hard way.
- We also separate between the fifth and sixth rib
because we want to maximize the size
of the entire pork loin here.
So we can get as many chops as possible.
It's the most expensive thing on a pig,
so we need to maximize that.
How might we do it even better, maybe dry-aging.
- I don't know.
- Who knows?
Where are we going?
What are we doing?
- Why would we do that?
We're doing it now.
- We'll see.
We have our Boston butt section.
We have our picnic section,
this episode ain't about that,
we're going to set that aside.
- This episode is about pork porterhouse.
- Okay. So next step is to separate the ham here.
We're just going to do one cut right across the H bone
keeping the sirloin intact.
We're just going to draw our line here,
just to separate the bit of pork belly.
- So our focus is here,
so let's get these guys in the cooler
- Right.
- So they're chilling out.
The last thing we need to do is separate the belly
which is also very valuable
because I don't know if you've heard of bacon.
- Don't tell them.
- Oh, sorry, sorry.
- It's an up and coming cut.
- I have our pork chop here
and this is obviously belly here.
So the idea is to find where the line is going to go.
Go all the way through.
So now that we have our belly off,
we are going to put this away
before we put it on cure, smoke it and sell it.
- All right.
So now that we got our loin ready
let's talk about the right environment
that this loin needs to be in to dry age.
- Well, you have three principles.
The first is temperature.
So we need this to be between, in Fahrenheit,
between 32 and 40 degrees.
Never over 40, never under 32,
because then you're freezing.
After that, we're gonna need to talk about humidity.
- We're gonna shoot for about 75 to 80% humidity
so that we're not drying it out too quickly.
Or if there's too much humidity too slowly
and it actually doesn't have any water loss.
- What about air flow?
- Ah, air flow.
This is to help with the evaporation of the water
by keeping that airflow going,
you're helping the process
of leaching some of that water out.
You're also keeping it a bacteria neutral
or beneficial bacteria environment.
- Let's get to aging.
- Yeah, you carry it.
- Thanks.
- Done carrying things today.
All right.
So four weeks later, you look great.
- Thanks.
I mean the overall change in color is amazing.
Everything has just intensified.
The meat has pulled back from the bone a little bit.
What was red meat is now like dark mahogany meat.
The whole thing looks fantastic.
- Yeah.
- This is what we call thamnidium,
and this is the, this is what you see
when you have created a very good
beneficial bacteria environment.
This meat is going to be a lot more tender
than where it started.
Those protein molecules were kind of wrapped pretty tight.
And at this point they're kind of like breaking down.
Those enzymes have been just attacking.
- We're going to cut some chops.
But before we cut our dry aged one,
we're going to cut a fresh one.
- Let's go.
- Oh buddy.
- Trade down.
So the whole idea, and you can see it right there,
this is going straight in between the vertebrae.
Beause we're cutting this by hand,
we're just going to cut one vertebra exactly,
which is going to be about an inch and a quarter.
And they're going to be perfect nice steakhouse chops.
- All right.
So we've got our fresh pork chop,
Now we're going to cut our dry aged.
- Wow. Okay.
It didn't even move.
- It didn't move at all.
- Oh right.
The skin is super dry.
Yeah. That makes sense.
- We ready?
Look at that.
- The fat almost looks cured.
- Yeah. It's lost so much water.
- Easy. Oh, mama
- That looks good.
- That is a pork chop for a king.
Oh my God.
- That is going to be so good.
We ended up losing a full two pounds from dry aging.
So it went from 27.6 to 25.6 in four weeks,
which is a little over 7% weight loss.
You can tell looking at this fresh,
like this is kind of like drooping and sagging,
and this guy is just like stiff as a board.
- Yeah. So we're first just going to trim the fat
off of the dry age, which wow, wow, wow.
So smooth.
I mean, it really cuts like a prosciutto fat.
- Wow.
- Next up,
because we have the exterior that was exposed.
We just want to get rid of that little bit.
Here we go.
- Got a nice chop.
Go liberal with the salt.
- All right.
We'll get set up.
We'll let them chill and cook them in about an hour.
- Okay.
- All right.
It's time man.
What we've been waiting four weeks for.
- Got a hot pan.
We've got a couple of hot chops.
- So we're going to put the fat side down first
to render out and then fry it on both sides.
So we have it on medium high heat right now.
Not like scorching hot because we want to render the fat.
We're going to take it a little bit more slowly
before we crank it up to sear the pork chop.
Just a little bit of butter
because there's a ton of fat in the pan already.
I mean, we're definitely there.
- We want to know what the dry age tastes like
compared to the fresh.
So we're going to use a different pan.
So we're starting from scratch again.
Again with the fat side down.
I'm curious how much of this is going to render.
- The cooking time is also going to be a lot shorter
because we've already lost a lot
of water through the dry aging process.
- This is going down in the pan.
- It's amazing how much it already,
like it just looks like beef.
Three quarters of the way through,
we're going to start basting now.
Garlic.
- Put a f****** tree in there?
Oh, papa bear.
- Ben, I know you want to eat this dry-aged pork chop,
and so do I.
But you can't.
- Okay.
- Cause we're scientists.
We gotta see what the control is like first.
- Let's take off this tenderloin.
- Good cook, good cook.
- It looks amazing.
It smells fantastic.
Four weeks in the waiting man.
- All right.
Wow, wow, wow.
- Well, we've waited four weeks.
So you're going to have to wait for us to cheers.
- And of course going fresh first
because it is our controller.
- Why are you getting just a small little guy?
- One step at a time, buddy.
Simple, clean, porky, lean, all the right things.
I mean that's exactly what a pork tenderloin
should taste like.
- Yep.
- All right, man.
- Let's do this dry aged pork.
- Oh my God.
- That's insane.
That is just like the cleanest, porkiest bite.
- Just like, the fat, just like melted.
Like I bit into it once,
and then it was just like "Okay."
- Okay, fine.
- Wow. Texture's a little bit, like a little bit softer.
Not as like epically soft as I thought it might be.
- Right.
- Which I actually like, I want to know I'm eating meat.
- It is really just a more intensified version
of our control.
- Yeah. The juiciness is still all there.
- Right? It's like supremely juicy and supremely tender.
Just because of the dry age.
We just gave the pork the time it needed
to like reach the apex of what it can be.
Can you taste the difference between fresh and dry aged?
- Okay, okay.
- What do you got?
- Fresh.
This guy's a pro.
Here you go.
- Instant difference.
F***, it's so good.
- All right Bent,
let's imagine a world in which pork was valued
as much as beef in the American steakhouse.
- I liked that world.
- You look at a menu and you and you saw that this
is a pork porterhouse dry aged four weeks.
How much are you paying for them?
- Man, this is same thing
as like a New York strip rib eye steak cuts.
You're getting in that eighties and up.
- I would pay like 95, a hundred dollars for that.
- You're buying the wine, I'm with you.
Four weeks in the waiting just to get some pork chops.
It was worth it.
Thank you for watching.
Cheers to you.
- Leave a comment.
Let us know what you thought we'd love to hear from you.
(upbeat music)