Wet aging vs dry aging for home butchers - which way do you go?

I've been going back and forth on this for a while now. Dry aging gives you that intense beefy flavor but you lose like 30% of the weight to trim and it takes weeks. Wet aging in cryovac is way simpler and you get almost no loss, but the texture isn't as good in my opinion. Last month I dry aged a ribeye roast for 21 days and it was incredible, but my buddy swears wet aging for 14 days gives him better results with less hassle. What do you all prefer for your home setup and why?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_wright20d ago

Wait, hold on - you dry aged a ribeye for 21 days and only lost 30% to trim? Man, I did a 14 day dry age on a whole primal last spring and I swear I must have trimmed off closer to 40-45% of the weight. The outer crust was way thicker than I expected, and I kept second-guessing myself on what was edible. Did you wrap it in anything special or just let it sit naked in the fridge?

jordan90320d ago

Nah, I gotta disagree with you here. 30% loss on a 21 day dry age sounds about right to me. If you lost 40-45% on only 14 days, you either had a bad setup or you were cutting way too deep. I do my dry aging naked in a dedicated mini fridge with a fan and I keep the humidity around 80-85%. At 14 days I barely lose anything, maybe 15-20% tops. The crust is thinner than people think if your airflow and humidity are dialed in. You might have been trimming off perfectly good meat.