How do you aged steak

In its native state, myoglobin forms a compound called deoxymyoglobin. This is the purplish color of freshly cut meat, before it's been exposed to any of our atmosphere.

Let this purplish, cut surface sit in the presence of oxygen for long enough, and it'll turn into oxymyoglobin , that familiar red color we look for in fresh meat. Now take a look at the cross-section of the aged steak:. You'll notice immediately that the purple core is significantly smaller, and it's soon followed by a brownish layer, and finally a dark, cherry-red layer on the exterior.

What's going on here? It's a matter of timing. The brown color is the color of metmyoglobin , the form that oxymyoglobin converts to after prolonged exposure to oxygen. In the case of this steak, oxidation has penetrated deep enough and far enough into the steak as to create a significant ring of deoxymyoglobin. Meanwhile, the very outer layers of the steak have taken on a deep, dark red color, an indication that moisture loss has led to an increase in density around the edges of the steak, and therefore an intensification in color.

What this also tells us is that in the timeframe we're talking—up to a week or more—small molecules do indeed penetrate deep into a steak. Is it possible that some of those molecules might be affecting flavor? And what about that dried out edge? How would that affect texture and flavor? A quick gag-inducing sniff test proved the worst in the case of the nine-day aged steaks: They were all rotten.

Even cutting into them revealed a core of edible meat only a few eighths of an inch thick. I threw them out, rather than risk the health of my tasters.

I cooked the remaining steaks in a large cast iron pan, using an infrared thermometer to ensure that the surface temperature of the pan was identical before placing the meat inside it.

Normally, I'd cook my steaks by flipping them frequently in order to promote faster, more even cooking throughout the meat. In this case, however, I stuck to a single flip in the middle for the sake of easy repetition and accuracy. Take a look at the steak on the right versus the one on the left below. This happens for two reasons. First, more moisture can cause it to buckle and bend when that moisture suddenly starts to leave thanks to the heat of the pan , causing certain areas of the steak to shrink faster than others.

Small perturbations in the surface of the meat are amplified. Second, because those browning reactions collectively known as the Maillard reaction take place when proteins and sugars are heated to high temperatures—generally in excess of degrees or so.

Meat contains a lot of water, which acts as a built-in temperature regulator, preventing the meat from getting too hot until it mostly evaporates. So for completely fresh meat to brown properly, this surface moisture must first be driven off.

Meat that has spent time in the refrigerator, however, already has a dry surface, allowing it to brown more efficiently. Slow browning is not the end of the world—just by letting the steak sit a few seconds longer on each side, I easily compensated for the discrepancies.

Even more interestingly, the biggest difference in browning was between the non-aged steak and the one-day aged steak. After that, there wasn't much difference, no matter how long the steak was aged. Indeed, subsequent testing showed that even an overnight 8- to hour rest on a rack in the fridge is sufficient to create a dry enough surface on the meat for optimized browning.

Certainly much better browning. The tender issue is debatable. The drier exterior seemed to make the interior feel moister and more tender. But we did not taste blind in this case. Other than browning, I noticed no major differences in the way the steaks cooked.

The real surprise came after I weighed all of the steaks post-cooking to see how much moisture they lost from their original state. Well, would you look at that? What this means is that whatever moisture loss occurs in the very outer layers of the steak due to dehydration during aging would have been lost anyway during cooking. It also indicates—even before tasting—that any arguments that rely on the concentration of meat flavors due to moisture loss are most likely bogus, since the final moisture loss is identical in all the steaks across the board.

How would they stack up in actual blind tastings? I performed two separate taste tests, using two separate groups of tasters to gather my results. The first taste test was a simple blind side-by-side ranking, in which I asked tasters to taste all the meat, give me notes on relative tenderness and flavor, and rank them in order of preference.

Between the steaks aged for zero, one, two, and five days, there was no discernible pattern to their preferences. The one result that did show a definite trend was that the seven-day aged steak was consistently ranked at the bottom in terms of flavor, with tasters citing "old refrigerator" and "stale" flavors.

So there is indeed something to Mark Pastore's claim that meat will pick up the flavors present in a refrigerator.

For the second round of taste tests, I went one step further, performing a triangle test, the standard test when rigorous results are needed for sensory-based studies. To perform the test, a subject is presented with three sample. Two of the samples are identical, while the third is different. The taster's only job is to determine which of the three samples is different from the other two. The test was given to 12 different tasters. And guess what? For steaks aged five days or less, tasters could not identify which steak was aged and which was fresh.

There was literally no detectable difference in the cooked steaks. In fact, out of the first seven tasters, none of them were able to correctly identify the odd-steak out. Even with completely random guessing, there's a 94 percent chance that at least one of those tasters should have gotten it right. In all, only two out of 12 tasters correctly identified the different steaks, a number still lower than you'd expect from pure chance alone.

Again, steaks aged for seven days were ranked below the rest of the steaks for having stale flavors. Finally, we tasted the fresh and five-day-aged steaks against steaks that were aged for 28 days in a professional aging cabinet. The difference was immediately, undeniably perceptible, with the true aged steaks offering a far more tender texture and a significantly deeper flavor.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone could possibly confuse the two. But you have that cool cache of it being aged. Most professionals will tell you to not dry age at home, but what else would professionals say?

However, they make a very compelling case when it comes to flavor and even safety. You want your dry-aging fridge to have a more consistent temperature and air flow than your home fridge offers. So when the steak actually has time to undergo the enzymatic reaction that makes dry-aged steak so delicious, it will start to have a muddled, stale flavor because of what it has absorbed in the fridge. The key is getting a dedicated dry-aging fridge that will eliminate all the aforementioned challenges.

And instead of getting individual cuts, by large slab that allows you to trim the meat before slicing into individual steaks. Then again, you could always just order the beef already aged by an online purveyor and save yourself the time. Plus, get digital edition access and a free tote bag. Travel Destinations Hotels Resorts Spas. RR One. Search Close. Give the Gift of Luxury. Access Exclusive Content All Year. RR One Subscribe.

By Mary Squillace. Mary Squillace. Photo: courtesy Ray Kachatorian. If you want something deeper -- more umami, nuttier, and meatier -- there are steaks that are aged longer than the standard 28 days. It's best to age on the bone with the fat on. The time depends on the flavor profile you are looking for.

Also the aromas put off by the dry-aging beef may influence the flavor of the other foods, or vice-versa. To combat this, Pollaci suggests keeping your aging steak on a rack with a pan below to catch all the drippings, including blood. Instead of investing in a fridge specifically for aged meats or building a customized Himalayan salt closet next to your pantry, you could always splurge on an aged steak at a trusted craft butcher in your area.

Again, this comes down to preference, but the chefs I spoke to all had different tips and tricks to making the best possible dry-aged steak.

For Pollaci, a super-hot cast iron pan and aggressively salt-and-peppered steak is key. Poll likes his steaks cooked the same way they do at Gallaghers, which is over hickory coals the restaurant goes through bags upon bags of coal a day.

The coals, it fluctuates. But the flavor is absolutely, substantially different. Both of these methods add flavor and depth to the meat. The cast iron pan with butter and herbs helps bring out the nutty and cheese-like characteristic of the meat's age.

The grilling over charcoal, depending on the woods, brings out a different aspect of the meat. It intensifies the umami and the rich grill char and smoke gives the nutty and cheese-like flavor a deeper more intense flavor and length on the palate. Skip to main content Courtesy of Gallaghers Steakhouse. Why even dry-age a steak to begin with? What happens to the meat during the aging process?

Which cuts work best? Is it possible to dry age a steak at home? Kat Thompson is a staff food writer at Thrillist and lover of all things beef. She prefers her dry-aged steak cooked medium rare.

Follow her on Twitter katthompsonn.