Smokin-It User Forum!
Alternative Cooking Methods to Go With the Smokin-It Smoker => Dry-Aging Meat => Topic started by: SconnieQ on December 30, 2017, 12:55:26 PM
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Started a 60 day dry-aged bone-in Choice Black Angus whole prime rib roast yesterday in an Umai bag. Bones covered with parchment paper to prevent punctures. $6.77 per pound at Pick N Save. I'll let you know how it is end of February. Not sure if I will smoke or roast. Maybe both since it is about 19 pounds, I could make 2 good size roasts. I'm hoping for an intense beefy/mushroomy flavor, with maybe a hint of cheese. We shall see. This is a really large piece of meat with the bone-in, so I think it should handle the 60 days just fine. FYI I used the largest Umai bag (Short Loin/Brisket 16x28in).
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I'll be following your results and looking forward to the results. If your not preparing for a large gathering could cut in half and smoke one and roast other to establish taste profiles. All the best and good luck....
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I'll be following your results and looking forward to the results. If your not preparing for a large gathering could cut in half and smoke one and roast other to establish taste profiles. All the best and good luck....
That's what I was thinking, roast 1/2, smoke 1/2. I haven't gone as long as 60 days yet, so I definitely want to roast, so I can better judge the flavor of the aging, without the additional smoke flavor.
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28 days in.
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Looking good!
I am looking forward to hearing how this goes.
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Thanks for sharing Kari. Your photos from previous as well as the advice you have given are great! thanks and cant wait to hear what you think of the additional time aging.
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Looking good! Time flies ... fly's or well 28 and counting!
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That's a big prime rib!
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45 days in. Looks almost identical to the 28 day pictures. The top of the roast is pretty much all fat, so I took a picture of the side, which has a mix of meat and fat, so you can see the color of the meat as compared to the fat. Changes are more subtle between 28 and 45 days, with the meat getting darker, and roast getting a bit more firm. Not as much evaporation going on at this point with the well established crust.
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Looks great Kari!
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Kari, that rib roast is looking real nice. If you decide to smoke part and roast part, here is a lengthy video (enjoyable) that you might like to watch.
http://www.pbs.org/video/cooking-concert-julia-child-and-jacques-pepin-create-classic-holiday-meal/
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Kari, that rib roast is looking real nice. If you decide to smoke part and roast part, here is a lengthy video (enjoyable) that you might like to watch.
http://www.pbs.org/video/cooking-concert-julia-child-and-jacques-pepin-create-classic-holiday-meal/
I thought I had seen just about every Jacques and Julia, but I hadn't seen that one yet. It was a good reminder to make yorkshire pudding to go with my prime rib.
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Glad you enjoyed it Kari. The first time I watched it I thought for sure the glass cups for the Yorkshire pudding would crack after being heated. I have always enjoyed watching those two work together. There is another under the cooking in concert where they do a turkey. Always enjoyable. Good luck on your roast!
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Glad you enjoyed it Kari. The first time I watched it I thought for sure the glass cups for the Yorkshire pudding would crack after being heated. I have always enjoyed watching those two work together. There is another under the cooking in concert where they do a turkey. Always enjoyable. Good luck on your roast!
I actually own a popover pan, and make them quite often. Sometimes also using the pyrex custard cups, or small stoneware ramekins. I'll look for the turkey video. I've seen the one they did on public television, but not the "in concert" one.
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Looking pretty crusty! My patience would be wearing pretty darn thin by now... ???
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Popover pans work great. Like Kari, I own several and have just finished teaching my 13 year old grand daughter how to make them. I bought her a couple of pans(among other things) for her birthday. Nobody should be afraid of making these things. In dozens and dozens of attempts I have never had a failure.
Here is the recipe, which I think came from Cooks Illustrated:
POPOVERS-
1 cup (5 ounces, 142 grams)
all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
2 extra-large eggs
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
vegetable spray
Place oven rack in low position, heat
oven to 450° also preheating 12 hole muffin tin or 6 hole popover pan. Whisk flour & salt together in medium bowl. In 2 cup measuring jug lightly whisk together milk, eggs & butter. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients all at once, whisk until just blended. Return to measuring jug. Grease cups & rims of muffin tin. Fill each cup half full of batter. Bake 20 mins without opening door. Reduce
heat to 350° & bake until brown- 15-20 mins longer. Serve warm. Popovers can be frozen in ziplock bags. Reheat at 325° for 5-10 minutes. Batter can be made ahead & stored in sealed container in fridge for upto 4 days. Bring to room temperature & stir well before using
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We have an old cast iron popover pan that gets semi-regular use. Prior to that just plain old muffin/cupcake pans.
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60-day dry age was done a week ago. Actually, I ended up going 63 days, since that's what worked with my Saturday dinner plans. Upon unwrapping, there was a very slight tackiness here and there on the surface, along with a slightly unpleasant odor. I've seen youtube videos that have mentioned that happening with these umai bags. I kind of wish I had given it a rinse before I trimmed it, since as I trimmed, I was probably transferring the surface smell to the newly trimmed meat. I just tried not to touch the trimmed part with my gloved hand. The meat underneath had a clean pleasant meat odor. And was bright red. I was going to try and do something with the trimmings, like make stock or something, but the trimmings were far too funky for that. So I tossed them.
My roast was bone-in, so after I had all of the crust trimmed off the meat and the bones, I removed the bones, then tied them back onto the roasts, so the bones would function as a rack in the oven. I made two roasts, and 3 steaks. I vac sealed and froze the steaks and one roast. The finished prime rib roast was really delicious. No funky taste. Just a rich beefy taste, maybe just slightly mushroomy, and not cheesy at all. Best of all was the texture. It was tender and moist, but not mushy.
I vacuum sealed the cooked bones from the roast, and put them in the sous vide at 131 for 3 days to tenderize the meat, which is pretty tough between the bones. I have to say I did not care for the bones/meat. The fat definitely had that funky flavor. Probably because the ends of the bones being porous, soaked in some of the funkiness, so as they cooked, they released some of that funk into the surrounding fat and meat. The meat was also kind of stringy, but not too bad if I just avoided the fat. But next time I'd probably not bother and let the dog have it.
I did not get any pictures of the "cooked" prime rib slices. They pretty much looked like the perfect medium-rare prime rib that we've all had. ;D In the end, I will probably go 45 days next time, and see if I can get the same flavor and texture benefits on the inside, without as much funk on the outside. And if there was a smelly, tacky exterior, maybe give it a good rinse before I trim it up.
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TYVM Kari for your reports and update.
Unfortunately my wife eats with her nose more so than with her eyes, which has caused untold consternation on my part since we married thirty nine years ago. Shes from the Ol'Sod and prefers fresh meat which qualifies as burnt offerings in the ....end. I on the other hand would appreciate the mushroomie somewhat cheesiness rare steak for myself but life is a compromise and marriage more so.
Love to try the beef aging process but would probably stick to the twenty eight day range ...
Onward and Upward toward Smokin-it nirvana
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I've found that the shorter times like 28 days do have a really nice effect on the texture, but do not impart any major flavor changes, other than maybe concentrating the beef flavor. Sounds like that's the way to go for you. I find dry-aging to be well worth it, even if just for mostly texture. I think 28-45 days will probably be my range, depending on who is coming to dinner. :)
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Thanks for the update. Did you smoke your prime rib roast? How large was it and how long did it take?
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Thanks for the update. Did you smoke your prime rib roast? How large was it and how long did it take?
I roasted the first one. I'm not sure how many pounds it was, but it was a "3-bone" roast. So about 6-7 slices. I wanted to taste the effect of the 60-day dry age without introducing smoke flavor into the mix. I have a second roast in the freezer that I will smoke. I used America's Test Kitchen roasting technique, which starts in a 200 degree oven for several hours, then with the oven shut off for a while, then under the broiler. Similar to how you would cook it in the smoker.
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Ok, I had read here that a dry aged roast will cook much faster than a "regular" roast. Sounds like the time frame was not affected in your meal taking about the same amount of time.
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Thanks for the write up Kari. I don’t know if you’ve done the 45 damage in the past but based on what you said I think this will be spot on for you. No tacky spots on the one I did as well.
And your experience here saved me from trying anything further in the future.
I’ll be interested to hear how the smoked roast turns out as well.
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Thanks for the write up Kari. I don’t know if you’ve done the 45 damage in the past but based on what you said I think this will be spot on for you. No tacky spots on the one I did as well.
If you look at my picture #2 of the bone side after removing the bag, you can see some thin brownish lines/streaks on the bones, left by what I think were small wrinkles in the bag. These are the tacky spots I mentioned, that had a somewhat unpleasant odor. In the future if I run across these, I would rinse them off before trimming, rather than spreading them around. Photo included here also.
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Great review, Kari! The things you have cited are why I'm not crazy about doing the really long dry aging. I love the taste at 28 days. If I started to trim, and got hit with a funky smell, I wouldn't ever do it again! I, too, eat/cook with my nose, and a funky smell would totally turn me off! More power to those that enjoy the 60+ day aging, but count me out.
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I have never experienced that & I have gone well past 60.
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I have never experienced that & I have gone well past 60.
Yeah, seemed like maybe some trapped moisture in the fine wrinkles of the bag. The meat underneath was fine.
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I understand there a higher chance of this occurring when ageing bone-in.
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I had contacted UMAI earlier about a boneless prime and they suggested that was an easier and better way to age.
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I can see how trapped air/moisture pockets could lead to funk. I've never done bone-in.
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I've seen lot of people do bone-in without any trouble. I'm not 100% convinced that it is the issue. I've also seen similar comments about the surface smell with the umai bags in general for 60+ days. My feeling is that bone-in is fine, but if going longer than 45 days, the porous bones might have a lot of extra "flavor". So be prepared for that if eating the bones. And if going more than 45 days in general, and you find an unpleasant surface smell, and you notice thin tacky lines that look like they came from small wrinkles in the bag, then rinse off the meat prior to trimming. The inside of my roast was excellent. But I should have rinsed the surface. I watched a youtube video last night of a guy who had the exact same experience as me. He aged for 65 days bone-in, commented on the funky surface smell, and was planning on doing the bones sous vide. And like me, the interior meat smelled good. He even left the crust on his steaks, and liked it better than trimmed. Not sure about that...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qipxJw7rg