Smoke N´Dry bags

[Bie]

Hi Guys
Just stumbled over something interesting, and wanted to hear some opinions.
I don't know if you know Dryaging bags? These are vacuum bags that can allow moisture to escape but lets nothing else in. So you can vacuum seal meat and let it dry age in the fridge (about to try it sometime soon).
Now they have meade some other bags that allow you to also smoke the meat while in the bags. Same principle. Moisture can get out of the bags, but nothing else can get in, except smoke. So you can vacuum seal your meat (also fish), let it cure if you want to, smoke it and let it dry afterwards without handling it more than once. This reduces the potential for contamination quite a lot I think.
What do you guys think?
These new vacuum bags seem to me like a good step to make things easier and safer.
Have you heard of them?

[Huskee]

Welcome to The Pit, Bie! I know Dr Blonder has a method of dry aging at home on his website here. I also remember dry aging bags being discussed...somewhere... but I cannot remember. What I do remember is somewhat of a distrust in doing it. I remember hearing some of the bags inevitably got compromised and things did not turn out as expected. I cannot however locate the source of that info.

I'll also direct you to Meathead's blurb on dry aging. It's on this page here, about 1/3 of the way down, the bold subheading titled "Aging". It's brief, and it gives some things to think about, if nothing else it's a good read.

I'll see if Meathead has anything to add...

[W.A.]

I've heard similar things. I believe to really benefit from dry ageing you need to start with primal cuts and age for at least a month. The most i have done is about 3 weeks before it looks horrible and smells up the entire fridge. Never tried a side-by-side comparison to see if it made a difference, but it certainly tasted great. I only did it because I was curious and I wanted some steaks from a whole prime rib and didn't want to freeze the remaining 10lbs or so.

[Huskee]

Oh, and since this is your first post, please check out our homework assignment post for new members, it contains lots of how-tos and please-dos! Hope to hear & see more from you. Thank you for the support!

[Meathead]

I have read good things about the aging bags and plan to test them but haven't gotten to it yet.

[_John_]

Let us know, sounds pretty cool. Also, it's nice to read a thread from people who can spell correctly, not sure why spelling errors bother me so much... We aren't ageing and certainly won't be dieing.

For some reason spell check didn't seem to catch ageing so I looked it up and apparently that is how they spell it across the pond. You'd think they'd know proper English by now

[HC in SC]

The auto correct on my iPad speaks some unknown alien language. Lol

[docblonder]

You can absolutely smoke through paper and plastic- see these experiments But the film will exclude some of the larger chemicals which color the bark, and may not look smoked. Look forward to hearing your results.

[Spinaker]

Doc, why would you want to smoke through paper and plastic bags? I guess, why leave it in the bag?

[docblonder]

Ah, well humidity is higher in the bag, so the meat is tender. And, the bag prevents soot from landing on the meat (you know, when you throw in a few lumps of hardwood and ashes fly into the exhaust). But the bark is not as dark, and the flavor -- while very good-- slightly less interesting than the best meat cooked outside the bag. I only used the bags to make a point about smoke ring chemistry and flavor. Invisible gases are the culprit, not the white or even blue smoke particles.

[Spinaker]

Interesting, Thanks!!

[Bie]

I will soon try the dry-aging bags and report.
And I will consider buying the Smoke N' Dry bags (but they are a little pricy). I find them particular interesting for my cold smoked Bacon and Salmon. I do not want to rock the boat regarding cold smoking, there is already a lengthy discussion on the site here. I live in a climate where I from late autumn to early spring can do the whole process at under 5 degrees celcius. But the Smoke N' Dry bags would make it even safer because of the less handling involved. I will post my experiences once I have tried it.

[Bie]

So all, I owe you a report from my first try with dry-aging bags.
First of all the bags are smooth, so you need to do a work-around to use the bags with a normal edge vacuum sealer. The company describes it themself and have also included whats needed to do it. So far so good. The solution is to take a piece of a "normal" rippled vacuum bag and put on the edge of the smooth bag. This way the air can be sucked out of the smooth bag.
Easier said than done and it took me an hour and I ruined several bags in the process. Apart from getting the air out the sealing posed some problems too. Sealing two times in succession did the trick at last but did not always work.
Anyway I vaccum sealed a piece of beef filet. It had already been wet aged a little and orthough the instructions for the dry-aging said to avoid that I went ahead and did it anyway.
I then let the meat rest in my fridge for 25 days. The seal og the bag did not hold up the whole time but as the bag somehow glued itself to the meat after some days (that is supposed to happen according to the instructions) so I just let it continue.
After the 25 days i took the meat out. Smelled ok and cut me two thick steaks. I seared them on my stove (winter here and the weather was not for outdoor cooking, apologies).
The meat tasted good. A more concentrated meat flavour and quite tender but still very firm. The fat did not taste good as i was too concentrated or even a little rancid, but that makes sense in my opinion.
So it seems that it works fine and you get a different taste. Next time i will try to give it a little less days. See pictures for how the meat looked after the 25 days. A lot of weight had been lost due to the evaporation, but then thats part of the whole idea.

[David Parrish]

Bie did you trim the fat down nice and close to the meat before cooking?

[Bie]

No i did not, should i have done that? As mentioned meat was good but fat not so much.

[Dinger]

I have just started a side by side comparison for dry aging. I know you asked about smoke bags, and I have no experience with that. However, I did start a thread about dry aging and asked similar questions about if the dry age bags work. I don't know how to link my thread to this one, but it is under my name. I have the description listed there on what I am doing and will post the results there.

[Huskee]

I have just started a side by side comparison for dry aging. I know you asked about smoke bags, and I have no experience with that. However, I did start a thread about dry aging and asked similar questions about if the dry age bags work. I don't know how to link my thread to this one, but it is under my name. I have the description listed there on what I am doing and will post the results there.

Dinger I believe your question post you're referring to is here?

[DWCowles]

Bie, did you trim a thin layer of the dark skin all around the meat before cooking?

[Bie]

Hi there, I have read that you can do that. But as the dark skin was very thin I did not bother. And I did not notice anything during coooking or eating the meat that would have suggested to remove it, at least not this time.