I used Umai dry age bag to age ribeye roast for 29 days

[wcpreston]

I decided to give the Umai dry aging bags a try. Here are my pics of the process. Getting the roast in the bag was something, for sure. I ruined one bag figuring it out. I think the real problem was I had never used the vacuseal before.

A few things:
1. MAKE SURE to roll back the edge of the bag as you're sliding it in. You want to keep the inside ends clean.
2. The weird part of the instructions where it tells you to seal a diagonal corner didn't make sense, but I finally understood it. It's because the bag is too wide to fit in the sealer w/o doing that.

Here's how it looked before sealing.



After a week



Two weeks



29 days. (I was going to do 28, but calculated wrong.)



I decided to slice the steaks into 2" wide steaks. I did that before trimming off the dryed edges. I thought that would be easier. I will say cutting the aged ribeye roast into steaks was some of the hardest cutting I've ever done. It was a lot harder to cut than fresh meat and it was very thick.

This is what they lucked after cutting but before trimming.



After trimming, but since I've never trimmed ribeyes, I think that huge fat section was unnecessary.



Here they are all shrink wrapped ready for the freezer. (I'll cook one fresh).

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This is a 10" wide bowl of all the trimmed off portions. I saute'd it, put it in the instapot and made enough "beef love" to fill one ice tray with it. I then used that beef love when I seared the steak! ​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​



Best steak I ever cooked. Here's what it looked like being seared after 45 mins at 225

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I declare this project a success!

[shify]

Awesome work, including the rendering of the trimmings to made dry aged beef love. Bet that would be awesome to use to sear burgers too

[Mr. Bones]

Great write up of th process, an tutorial, Brother!
So glad to hear it was a wild success!

[grantgallagher]

Yeah, great write up. This is something im continually interested in but the wife does not really like the taste of dry aged beef so ive never invested in it. Maybe one day...

Either way, looks delicious. Would love to see the sliced pics...

[grantgallagher]

An internal shot one you dug into what looks like the perfect steak! Ie the money shot, lol

[wcpreston]

Oh, THAT sliced pic. I'll do that next time I cook one or two.

[Joe Kurzeja]

I’m with you, my wife isn’t very keen on aged meat. Oh well, I’m going to do it anyway. Lol

[EdF]

Hopefully not to hijack - here are a couple of mine, between 35-40 days, depending on the piece of meat.



This is from that first batch - 36 days.


Well, you get the idea. Just tell her she can have something else! ;-)

[EdF]

That was really just a matter of the cut of beef. I tend not to trim dry-aged pieces very aggressively. I figure they can always be trimmed on the plate if that's the preference. Some of us like the outside flavor. First two pics were rib roast; the other two were loin roast. Cooked one is rib.

[wcpreston]

That explains why it looked so different. When I look at the first pic, I see that chunk of fat at the end.

[EdF]

Yep, that's rib roast! wcpreston

[RonB]

They all look great.

[MattTheGR8]

Thanks for sharing, I need to try using a bag for dry aging one of these days.

[Dr. Pepper]

MattTheGR8, I tried using my 4000 series food saver to seal the Umai bag. This is one of machines that senses when you have inserted a bag, and then closes the sealing bar and starts the process. Total disaster. There is not enough rigidity in the Umai bags to allow that. Their website warns against trying to use the automatic machines. I borrowed a 2000 series Food Saver machine from my daughter. This requires a manual closing of the machine, and therefore allows one to place the floppy

[Dr. Pepper]

..floppy bag onto the sealing bar, then close the lid and start. RE: the mini fridge, the Umai website warns against the mini fridges because they don't bring outside air into the inside, to decrease the humidity and allow drying through their bags. I suppose if you open and close the refrigerator a few times a day you would accomplish the air exchange to allow drying.

[MattTheGR8]

Thanks Dr. Pepper, that's great information. My sealer is a Weston Pro-2300 with a manual door, so no issues with regard to an automatic. One benefit to using a bag is that I can dry age a larger roast than will fit in my mini fridge. However, it's good to know that the mini fridge also doesn't move enough air to keep the bags properly dry.

[Sweaty Paul]

Nicely done. Thanks for sharing. I do want to try this.

[Backroadmeats]

So how does that bag work.. I have never seen these !! It lets moisture out???

[EdF]

Lets the moisture escape, but keeps the meat with access to air. The bag is perforated. The enzymatic action starts where the bag contacts the surface of the meat.

[SparkDog]

Since I am new to the pit, what is "beef love?". I tried to search but anything with beef in it keeps showing up

[wcpreston]

Here's how to make it.

https://stellaculinary.com/forum/general-cooking-and-recipe-trouble-shooting/bbq-grilling-and-smoking/ok-a-bbq-trick-beef-love

I did mine a bit differently, since I had all the dry trimmings from the dry aging process. I just basically boiled the crap out of mine for hours, getting all the juices out of everything and what I had left was mostly fat. That's how I turned a bunch of scrap into an ice cube tray full of beef love.

[SparkDog]

Thanks for the translation. I will have to try this when I get my next beef.

[SparkDog]

Thanks for the translation. I will have to try this when I get my next beef.

[Troutman]

Great job wcpreston, welcome to the Umai club !!!!!

[grantgallagher]

as awesome as it must have been try a flight of dry aged steaks...im not sure id be down for the last couple, lol.

[wcpreston]

grantgallagher Agreed LOL

[ddmcwhirter]

I like to sear my rib roast, from the cold, before smoking. Looking at your pellicul, I'm thinking what a fantastic base for a hard sear, maybe using the pear burner, turning it into a crust, then rubbing with gooey oily fresh spices, then smoking slow with lots of smoke.

[ILikePigButts]

I've never had a dry aged steak but this is interesting. I just read above that the bags are perforated and let's moisture out and keeps the meat in contact with the air, but what temperature and humidity must the meat be at to keep it from spoiling? Is just a regular refrigerator suitable enough so that aging the beef is really as simple as putting it in the bag sealing it and putting it in the fridge for a few weeks?

[wcpreston]

The whole point of the bags is to be able to do dry aging in a refrigerator. Regular fridge temps are fine. The answer to your last question is yes.

[lonnie mac]

Yes, it is that simple. They are made to go into your regular fridge. You do want to have the meat on a metal rack of some sort so air can get on all sided. Most fridges don't have metal rack shelving anymore.

[wcpreston]

ILikePigButts I LOVE your username

[ILikePigButts]

grantgallagher none really. I have an Earth Fare about 25 minutes away. Better off just getting one at a restaurant sometime I think.

[ILikePigButts]

wcpreston Thanks. Got it from a t-shirt my father-in-law gave me from a company sponsored hog roast. Wish I could have been there myself though!

[PappyBBQ]

wcpreston I was re-reading this post and caught your reference to using an instapot to render your beef love. Can you share how you did that?

[Spinaker]

You will not regret making that! I literally have jars and jars of it in my fridge. Wagyu too!

[PappyBBQ]

Yeah, I do this all the time with trimmings rendering low in a saute pan, but I have't dry aged yet (on my plan) and the instapot thing caught my eye.

[wcpreston]

I sauted them until brown then put some water in and steam cooked them for multiple cycles. Then I pulled out the juices and put it in an ice tray. It's about 90% rendered fat w/a little bit of water here/there.

[Spinaker]

Just got my bags a few days ago. Now to get the roast!