A little historic period never hurt anyone—unless we're talking about our increasingly creaky knees and ever-more foggy memory, or sorer-past-the-day lower backs. Okay, scratch that. For u.s.a. mortals, age hurts, period. But when it comes to such culinary delights as wine, cheese, and cherry-red meat, age has the ability to enhance flavor and deepen our enjoyment.

This is especially the case for dry-aged beef, which is known for a richer flavour and more tender texture—besides as a heftier toll tag—than its fresh-cutting counterparts. But what is it about dry-crumbling that works such magic on meat?

Fifty-fifty if you capeesh what a dry-aged steak does for your tastebuds, the nuances most how it delivers such a transcendent experience may escape yous. That's why, with the help of food scientists and chefs, we're unpacking exactly what dry-aged beef is and how dry out-aging works.

What is dry out crumbling?

"An unsexy way to explain it is that dry-aging, in a nutshell, is a controlled disuse process," says Katie Flannery, butcher and COO at Flannery Beef. "You're exposing the subprimals to oxygen, which allows natural enzymes inside the meat piece of work," she says. "They're aerobic bacteria, and so they need oxygen to survive. They come live and kickoff breaking down the molecular bonds of meat." This, in turn, alters the flavor and texture of the cutting.

What dry aging looks like is literally a room total of moldy carcasses. In the dry-crumbling process, meat hangs in a humidity-controlled environment in a way that exposes all of its sides with unimpeded airflow around the entire cut. "And then at that place's the good mold that finds its way onto steaks, which will slowly start to intermission downward and increase the amount of evaporation," says Chris Pandel, executive chef at Swift and Sons in Chicago. "Yous're puling moisture from the meats over time. Every bit that happens the mold will extend its life and grow. Information technology'due south like the mold on bluish cheese—it's good mold great mold."

Of form, before that slab of beefiness makes it to your plate, all of the mold will be trimmed away, leaving just "tenderized, funky, succulent meat," Pandel says. He describes the flavor of dry out-aged meat as having a nuttiness to it that you won't arrive a wet-aged steak. Likewise, it'll be more than tender and accept a different mouthfeel.

Swift & Sons steakhouse

Steak from Pandel's Swift & Son's Swift & Sons

How does dry out-crumbling modify the taste and texture of meat?

Moisture loss is 1 aspect that changes the flavor of dry-aged meat. "What that does is essentially concentrate the remainder of the tissue," says Harold McGee, food scientist and writer of Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. "Meat is about 75 percent water. If yous lose a few percent to evaporation … what'south left will be more than concentrated, so the flavour will be more than full-bodied."

For those who know their way around a kitchen, Flannery likens the process to reducing a stock to a demi-slippery. "You have that pot on your stovetop. Every bit more and more moisture evaporates, the flavour of the liquid is getting more and more than concentrated. With beef, every bit water evaporates, the natural beef flavor intensifies," she says.

But chemical changes also affect the flavor. "During the crumbling menstruation, some of the flavor compounds and other molecules in the meat undergo chemical change that will increase some flavour components while reducing others," says Joe Regenstein, Professor in the Department of Food Science at Cornell's Higher of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Musculus cells are made of lots of different materials, and main among them are the proteins that enable the muscles to contract, and the molecules that fuel this process, such as glycogen, Dna and RNA. During dry-aging, these large, flavorless molecules are cleaved downwards into smaller, flavorful fragments, explains McGee.

"All of those molecules are relatively big, and when they're broken down past the enzyme activity, they grade fragments that are more than flavorful than the original large molecules," he says. "Some proteins become broken downwards into amino acids. They can be a little bitter, savory, such as in MSG, and the Deoxyribonucleic acid/RNA material tin get cleaved into other molecules that are savory and enhance the savoriness of MSG. And glycogen broken into sugars which are sweet."

Dry crumbling transforms the texture of meat as well. "Meat has a very circuitous internal structure that tin can be difficult to bite through. Past breaking some of these proteins down, the teeth tin can now more easily go through the meat," Regenstein says.

What are the all-time cuts of dry-anile meats?

Unabridged primals, rather than unmarried steaks are dry out-aged, but to exist a good candidate for dry-aging requires a adept protective covering of bone or fat. This means there's less surface area that needs to exist trimmed away later. "Filets tend not to exist anile because there's no bone or fat protecting it, Flannery says. Dry-aging is wasteful because every unmarried side of meat that is exposed to air will be breaking down faster than the meat on the inside." Bone-in New York strip or ribeye are good contenders for dry-aging, Pandel says.

45-day dry aged rib eye steak

Ribeye is a swell cut to dry out age. Photo: Kevin Marple

What's the ideal time to dry-historic period meat?

The ideal length of time for dry-aging meat really comes downwardly to individual taste. For Flannery, the sweet spot is effectually 30 to 35 days. "For retail customers, nosotros go 35 days, but for eating place customers we go 18 to twenty," she says. "That's because in the restaurant manufacture, if a diner isn't familiar with dry-anile beef, their first reaction might be to think that something is off."

Pandel says he likes meat that's been anile around 45 days. "Yous can tell it's been anile, only it'due south non unpleasant," he says. "We've gone further. In running a steakhouse it's personal preference. Some folks like information technology really funky, but for some people it's too gnarly."

And the longer you become, the funkier the flavour volition get. "Dry-aged meat does have a unique scent and flavor. Funky is a skilful way to describe it," she says. "It's a more rich flavor up until the 30-solar day betoken. When you go further than that, and if you go really far out, similar 60 to 90 days, you lot develop a serious blue cheese funk to it. It will aroma remarkably like blue cheese."

Why Is Dry-Aged Meat More Expensive?

With a dry out-aged descriptor comes a steeper toll tag—simply information technology's for more than just the fancy moniker. "At that place'south a reaction to higher prices without fully understanding why dry out-aged meat is more expensive," Flannery says. "We're not slapping another 50 pct to the cost because we feel like it. It's a more costly production to produce."

Betwixt whittling away the moldy parts and the moisture evaporation, you lot can lose upward to 50 percent of the key's original weight, Flannery explains. That ways if your butcher bought ten pounds of meat, she might just have five pounds left to sell past the fourth dimension it'southward been anile, essentially doubling what she paid for it.

steak beef aging room

Adam Perry Lang in his aging room. Photograph: courtesy Josh Telles

Dry-Aging Vs. "Wet-Aging"

Occasionally, you may too hear the words "wet-anile" used describe a slice of meat. Moisture-aging describes meat that has been anile in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag. "The meat is held for weeks or months enclosed in a plastic bag that prevents evaporation from taking place, so you don't become the aforementioned loss of water and don't become the aforementioned concentration of season," McGee says.

"I'll only say it: Moisture-aging is bullshit. It's basically to get the discussion "crumbling" on a product without incurring the massive loss of dry out-aging," Flannery says. "Considering dry-aging and then expensive is one reason people push wet-aging. There'southward no trim loss and no moisture loss. But yous have that cool cache of it existence aged."

Wet-aging won't deliver the nutty flavor or same mouthfeel as a dry-aged steak. "You tin can't simulated dry out-anile. Yous can't condense time. It'due south a really unique product," Flannery says.

Dry aging at home

Nigh professionals will tell you to not dry age at habitation, but what else would professionals say? Still, they make a very compelling case when it comes to season and even safety. Dry aging is a controlled fermentation, which René Redzepi and David Zilber of Noma  showed y'all can do at home, but with necessary precautions and equipment. With dry aging steak, the problem people run across is that they don't realize the home fridge doesn't actually piece of work, for a couple reasons. You want your dry out-crumbling fridge to have a more than consistent temperature and air flow than your domicile refrigerator offers. Also, you lot don't want annihilation else in the fridge, because over time the steak will start absorbing the flavors of the other food inside the old icebox with it. So when the steak actually has fourth dimension to undergo the enzymatic reaction that makes dry-anile steak then delicious, information technology will first to take a muddled, dried flavor because of what it has captivated in the fridge. That doesn't hateful you can't dry out age at home. The key is getting a dedicated dry-aging fridge that will eliminate all the aforementioned challenges. And instead of getting individual cuts, past large slab that allows y'all to trim the meat before slicing into individual steaks. Then again, yous could always just order the beef already aged by an online purveyor and relieve yourself the time.