Video: How to Properly Age Beef for Cooking

This Season: Tailgating; New Year, New You; Tax Time

Learn how to properly age beef or steak for cooking in this free expert cooking video on preparing a delicious steak dinner.

Comments

Video Transcript

The next thing we are going to talk about is aging of meat. A lot of beef is aged in several different ways. One is called green aging which is when a cow is slaughtered and is kept in a climate controlled environment and allowed to stay there for several days. When the death happens, they go through a period of rigamortis. When rigamortis subsides, the enzymes in the tissues start breaking down the beef or decaying to an extent. When that decaying process has been long enough, then they package their meat for sale and that tenderizes the meat. There is also dry aging which is beef left in open air for several days in a very climate controlled environment with ultraviolet light to eliminate any type of bacteria and there is wet aging which is beef that is packed in its own juices and allowed to sit there for several days and allow again those enzymes to break down the beef. This is very important due to how you want the texture of your beef. An aged beef is going to be a lot more tender, lot more supple and going to have a really nice flavoring though it is of course more expensive to having aged beef.