I saw a recent post in the pit asking about wet-aging and I had just read about it in Kenji's "The Food Lab" book. I didn't want to hijack the other post, so thought I'd start a new one. I have always wondered about wet-aging, and Kenji's response was really what was going on in the back of my mind when I heard about or actually used wet-aging. Here's what he says:
"The problem is that wet-aging is nothing like dry-aging. For starters, there is no oxidation of fat in wet-aging, which means that there is no development of funky flavors. A minimal amount of flavor change will occur through enzymatic reactions, but these are, well, minimal. Additionally, wet-aging prevents the drainage of excess serum and meat juices. Tasters often describe wet-aged meat as tasting "sour" or "serum."
Wet aging can result in the same tenderizing and moisture-retaining benefits as dry aging, but that's about it. In reality, wet-aging is a product of laziness and money-grubbing. It's easy to let that Cryovacked bag of beef from the distributor sit around for a week before opening the bag and calling it "aged."....
The other drawback to wet-aging is that it can't be done for as long as dry-aging. It seems counterintuitive, considering that a wet-aged hunk of meat is largely protected by the outside environment. But if even a smudge of harmful anaerobic bacteria makes its way into that bag, the meat will rot inside its cover, though giving no indication that it's done so until you open it up."
"The problem is that wet-aging is nothing like dry-aging. For starters, there is no oxidation of fat in wet-aging, which means that there is no development of funky flavors. A minimal amount of flavor change will occur through enzymatic reactions, but these are, well, minimal. Additionally, wet-aging prevents the drainage of excess serum and meat juices. Tasters often describe wet-aged meat as tasting "sour" or "serum."
Wet aging can result in the same tenderizing and moisture-retaining benefits as dry aging, but that's about it. In reality, wet-aging is a product of laziness and money-grubbing. It's easy to let that Cryovacked bag of beef from the distributor sit around for a week before opening the bag and calling it "aged."....
The other drawback to wet-aging is that it can't be done for as long as dry-aging. It seems counterintuitive, considering that a wet-aged hunk of meat is largely protected by the outside environment. But if even a smudge of harmful anaerobic bacteria makes its way into that bag, the meat will rot inside its cover, though giving no indication that it's done so until you open it up."
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