How to Dry Beef

Find beef with a medium amount of well-distributed marbling.

Aging beef before cooking and serving it greatly develops its flavor. Because dry aging beef is more costly than wet aging it, beginning in the 1970s, a lot of commercial beef is wet aged in plastic wrappers. However, a dry aged beef, while it loses moisture weight and must be shaved of its dry outer layers, has a much better flavor. To get around the lack of dry aged beef available commercially, try making it at home, in your refrigerator. Does this Spark an idea?

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Paper towels
3 layers of cheese cloth
Tray
Sharp knife

Instructions

- 1
  
  Make sure your fridge is cold for food safety.
  
  Read the temperature of your refrigerator for a few days at different times of day to make sure it will stay consistently under 40 degrees F all the time. Commercial meat lockers have a much more dependable temperature than home fridges.
- 2
  
  You might have to go to a specialty store for the beef.
  
  Find a choice beef USDA rib steak with even marbling. You may not be able to find a steak of this quality at the local grocery store. However, you'll need this type of quality meat -- it needs to be surrounded by a thick layer of fat.
- 3
  
  Dry the meat well.
  
  Rinse the beef well, and pat it dry with a paper towel.
- 4
  
  Don't skimp on the cheese cloth.
  
  Wrap the beef in three layers of cheese cloth.
- 5
  
  Set the wrapped beef on a rack at the bottom of your refrigerator. Place a tray under the rack to catch any moisture.
- 6
  
  Leave the meat in the fridge for one day.
- 7
  
  Unwrap and rewrap the beef to keep the cloth from sticking to the meat as it begins to dry.
- 8
  
  Leave the meat in the fridge for one to nine more days, or a total of two to 10 days.
- 9
  
  Unwrap the beef and cut off all the dried outside layers.
- 10
  
  Cut off any dried fat.
- 11
  
  Cut into steaks and use or freeze.

Tips & Warnings

The longer you let the meat age, the tastier it gets, because the more moisture evaporates, the more concentrated the beefy flavor.
Do not try this if you don't have a reliably cold fridge.
Make sure that your hands and the cheese cloth are completely clean.

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