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What is Wet Aged Beef?

What is Wet Aged Beef?
What is Wet Aged Beef?
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Product Description

Wet Aging. The less expensive alternative to dry aging is called wet aging. Meat is shipped from packing plants to butchers in vacuum packaging. Butchers can set this packed meat aside in their refrigerators and allow them to age. Since the meat is packed in it’s own juices the enzymes will breakdown the connective tissues and make it more tender. However, because there will be no fluid loss the concentration of flavor that you get from dry aging won’t happen.

So why not save yourself some money, and age your own beef? Take that vacuum packed primal cut (from which market cuts are taken) from the butcher and put it in the refrigerator for 2 weeks and you’ll have a really tender piece of meat, right? No. Aging needs to be done and precise temperatures under controlled circumstances. The average family refrigerator just doesn’t have what it takes to properly age beef. It is very easy to get a good colony of bacteria going in that meat during the couple of weeks it takes to age a piece of beef.

Worse still is this recipe for a trip to the hospital that’s been floating around the Internet. Take you prime or choice steaks, unwrap them, rinse with cold water, wrap in a clean kitchen towel and place on the coldest shelf of your refrigerator. Every day for 2 weeks take the steaks out and change the towel. At this point you are promised a fantastic steak, provided you live though the digestive process after eating it....Thanks to About.com