**The Art of Dry Aging: A Journey Through Time**

As we embark on our journey to explore the world of dry aging, it becomes clear that this process is not just about preserving meat, but also about elevating it to an art form. The moment we begin to talk about dry aging, it's evident that there's a level of anticipation and excitement surrounding the product. "Making it even more desirable for us to actually want to eat it," the speaker says, highlighting the complexity and nuance of this process.

**The Science Behind Dry Aging**

As we delve deeper into the world of dry aging, it becomes apparent that science plays a significant role in this process. The enzymatic reaction that occurs during dry aging is responsible for breaking down proteins and fats, resulting in a tender and juicy product. "The moment we've been waiting 160 days for this freaking steak," the speaker says, emphasizing the significance of time and patience in the dry aging process. However, it's also worth noting that there's a point at which tenderness peaks, around 21 days, after which further aging may not yield significant results.

**A Taste of Luxury: The Dry-Aged Steak Experience**

When we finally get to taste our dry-aged steak, it's clear that the wait has been worth it. "I can eat it all super straightforward does taste really clean little sweet it's grassy has nice minerality to it little barnyardy little oyster salinity to it but just a really really nice nice clean fresh steak," the speaker describes, highlighting the subtle yet refined flavors of this exceptional product. The texture, too, is noteworthy, with a "really tender very nice great mouth feel great chew" that's both surprising and delightful.

**The Nuances of Aging: A Tale of Two Steaks**

As we move on to explore different aging times, it becomes clear that each steak has its unique characteristics and flavor profiles. The 50-day dry-aged sirloin is a standout example of this, with "a really nice hard crust" that's both desirable and impressive. In contrast, the 80-day steak offers a more complex experience, with a subtle yet pronounced nuance that's both intriguing and alluring.

**The Flavors of Time: A Study in Contrasts**

As we continue our journey through the world of dry aging, it becomes clear that time is not just a factor, but also a catalyst for transformation. The 160-day steak, with its "otherworldly" flavor profile, is a stark reminder of this process. "The difference between the 50-day and the 80-day is definitely just the Nuance all of the other Nuance from the smell really come out and they come out in a nice slow easy subdued way that just kind of like sits with you," the speaker says, highlighting the subtlety and sophistication of this exceptional product.

**The Experience of Dry Aging: A Celebration of Quality**

In the end, it's clear that dry aging is not just about producing a product, but also about creating an experience. "This is a very specific steak experience when you have some super nice ingredients and really want to like celebrate them," the speaker says, capturing the essence of this process. Whether you're looking for a straightforward, clean-tasting steak or something more complex and nuanced, dry aging offers a world of possibilities that are sure to delight even the most discerning palates.

**Final Verdict: The Power of Patience**

As we come to the end of our journey through the world of dry aging, it's clear that patience is key. Whether you're working with your butcher or selecting a product from a steakhouse, asking yourself what kind of experience you want out of this steak is crucial. With the right approach and attitude, dry aging can be a truly transformative experience that elevates even the humblest of ingredients into something truly exceptional.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI'm butcher Brent young and today we will be looking at four different sirloin steaks dry AED at 14 50 80 and a whopping 160 days to answer the question is steak really better with age so this is a 14-day aged sirloin what we consider fresh meat to first talk about its appearance at 14 days you see doesn't have any crust on it nice dark red color to the meat and it is still pliable it just looks like really nice healthy beef here we have a 50-day dry-aged sirloin there's a hard exterior because a pellicle has formed that hard exterior from rotating air around the piece of meat in the refrigerator it's just drying out the outside really dark almost leathery in actual appearance it has really hardened to a point where you can actually knock on it the fat still looks really clean we don't see any black red or green molds that's a good thing you want to be super careful that you're actually not eating any bad molds 80 day dry-aged steak we see on the outside that there is some mold that's developed which is called theum theum growth is cool and that we know that it's imparting more flavor it's even harder than it was before the main difference between the 80 and the 50 is really the water loss you can just feel that this is a lot harder here we got 160 days it sounds Hollow this is just the little bit of kidney fat that's left over we have even further it's the medium growth we can see that it's even a little whiskery we still don't see any like blue black green molds anything that looks dangerous compared to the 80-day we can see that there is a drastic difference there's more mold formation there's even more water loss this is about as far as we can take a steak to see is it better with dry age I'm super excited to cut into this because ultimately we really don't know what it's going to look like on the inside first of all it smells very clean smells minerally smells irony nice clean fresh this is freaking exciting it smells way more of a cheese shop than it does of a butcher shop still super clean really minerally but we're definitely picking up some like blue cheese mold so this doesn't have the same barnyardy grass quality that the 14-day had but it already has way more of a aged leather uh smell to it the exterior definitely has real cheesy qualities the interior of it is still super beefy it's got a sweetness to it the nuttiness is definitely more like subtle almond nuttiness there's almost a tart smell to it almost similar to Cherry at this age the smells are going to translate to the flavor this is why you would dry age something like to this many days it's going to impart another flavor onto it it's going to be radically different than 20 30 or 40 days way more complex smell therefore a more complex taste if you don't like the smell you're probably not going to like the way that it actually tastes it's crazy it's funny cuz there's like there's no nice words to actually uh describe this because it it's it smells like perspiration it smells like sex like it smells like sex it smells so meaty so so beefy yet with all of the like super Umami driven flavors of blue cheese of aged ham of leather like I am definitely the most excited about this 160 day I was a little skeptical at first I will admit it but I think this is going to be an amazing steak that I'm super excited to cook I'm just going to take a moment with this beauty we just have our 14 day siring we cooked about 5 minutes aside not dry-aged this is just our control measure for our experiment nice texture to it doesn't really have any water loss to it yet so it should just be a nice clean steak that was very easy to slice the muscle fiber itself looks looks really nice the texture of our 50-day steak feels really nice you can tell that it's radically different than our 14-day um you can tell that it's just not holding the same amount of moisture that a younger steak is it has more structure sure it's been lifting some weights muscle fibers in and of themselves are also a little tighter than a younger steak so as our first jump from 14 to 50 days we've greatly surpassed the 21-day Mark of enzymatic breakdown to actually tenderize the steak I think it's really cool to notice that the dry aging process has already drastically changed this steak it already looks and feels better than the 14-day 80-day from dry aging we have two things going on we have the water loss and then we have the enzymatic reaction these proteins actually breaking down boosting flavor enhancing amino acids it's going to make it really nice Brown and crusty on the outside which is upping Umami which is making it even more desirable for us to actually want to eat it and also noticeably there's a thicker more defined crust on the outside from cooking from the myard reaction looks fantastic the fat looks perfectly rendered this just looks like a really really nice steak so even with the water loss we still have a super juicy steak in the process of dry aging the enzymatic reaction that you're going to have really caps out at about 21 days of actually affecting tenderness the moment we've been waiting 160 days for this freaking steak there are parts of it that I know it was a steak but honestly feel like cured salami the way that it feels all of it very similar to the 50 in a 80 day I do think that the rule is true that like you're not going to necessarily gain more tenderness after 21 days there's a really nice hard crust to this which is just a nice example of the mayard reaction I can eat it all super straightforward does taste really clean little sweet it's grassy has nice minerality to it little barnyardy little oyster salinity to it but just a really really nice nice clean fresh steak here we got 50-day dry-aged sirloin you know this is a pretty lean steak but even having to bite with a little bit more of the fat you always pick up more of the age with the fat that's where you're going to get a lot of those flavor compounds and even that was super clean remarkably better texture shocking that I'm not even thinking necessarily about the taste because the texture itself is so much better really interesting and worthwhile to note that while we did pick up some of the molds and and some of the further development in smell really not picking up on that through the taste The Taste is very very clean so I think if you're looking for like the best version of a steak from a farm you know where it came from you really can't beat 50 days just seems like the best option that's a fantastic steak texture of this 80-day steak is really tender very nice great mouth feel great chew a little surprised honestly that we were picking up a lot of different molds and leather smells when I first cut into it and I'm not really picking that up on the flavor still eats really clean actually now that I continue to talk what I am noticing that in my mouth I am getting like a little bit of that parmesan feeling the more I kind of sit with it it's like kind of kind of mellowing out all right I take all of it back I'm totally lying this is phenomenal it just took a minute holy sh that's cool you get a lot of the mold that actually just like comes through but in a very subtle way not in like a Rog for blue cheese sort of way it just kind of again lingers in the back in a really nice like foresty mushroomy way the difference between the 50-day and the 80-day is definitely just the Nuance all of the other Nuance from the smell really come out and they come out in a nice slow easy subdued way that just kind of like sits with you you're ready for your next bite this is a very specific steak experience when you have some super nice ingredients and really want to like celebrate them 80 days is exactly what I would recommend that is truly a dramatic transformation this more resembles a washed rind cheese than it does any of the Blue Notes that we picked up before any of the molds that we picked up before this is actually really subtle the beefiness in and of itself actually feels like it's dialed down a little bit and everything else is actually like melted together in a really subtle way I thought it was going to be way more Punchy way more in your face quite frankly it's not all of the Nuance is just in all of these little undertones that are just lingering in your mouth it's a subtle Sunday afternoon sort of experience that you really want to take your time with you can tell that's still rare it tastes super juicy it doesn't have a lot of juice coming out of it but the texture itself slices and eats more similar to an aged ham than it does to an actual steak the 50 the 80 the 160 the texture was actually very very similar but the flavors were wildly different at 50 we had very straightforward really nice beefy grassy fantastic steak 80 got even more complex and 160 was almost otherworldly in all of the different nuances that the whole thing held final verdict got to say it's better with age if you're looking for dry age either in the butcher shop or at a steakhouse ask yourself what kind of experience do you really want out of this steak talk to your butcher make some decisions about the experience that you want to have we'll guide you in the right directionI'm butcher Brent young and today we will be looking at four different sirloin steaks dry AED at 14 50 80 and a whopping 160 days to answer the question is steak really better with age so this is a 14-day aged sirloin what we consider fresh meat to first talk about its appearance at 14 days you see doesn't have any crust on it nice dark red color to the meat and it is still pliable it just looks like really nice healthy beef here we have a 50-day dry-aged sirloin there's a hard exterior because a pellicle has formed that hard exterior from rotating air around the piece of meat in the refrigerator it's just drying out the outside really dark almost leathery in actual appearance it has really hardened to a point where you can actually knock on it the fat still looks really clean we don't see any black red or green molds that's a good thing you want to be super careful that you're actually not eating any bad molds 80 day dry-aged steak we see on the outside that there is some mold that's developed which is called theum theum growth is cool and that we know that it's imparting more flavor it's even harder than it was before the main difference between the 80 and the 50 is really the water loss you can just feel that this is a lot harder here we got 160 days it sounds Hollow this is just the little bit of kidney fat that's left over we have even further it's the medium growth we can see that it's even a little whiskery we still don't see any like blue black green molds anything that looks dangerous compared to the 80-day we can see that there is a drastic difference there's more mold formation there's even more water loss this is about as far as we can take a steak to see is it better with dry age I'm super excited to cut into this because ultimately we really don't know what it's going to look like on the inside first of all it smells very clean smells minerally smells irony nice clean fresh this is freaking exciting it smells way more of a cheese shop than it does of a butcher shop still super clean really minerally but we're definitely picking up some like blue cheese mold so this doesn't have the same barnyardy grass quality that the 14-day had but it already has way more of a aged leather uh smell to it the exterior definitely has real cheesy qualities the interior of it is still super beefy it's got a sweetness to it the nuttiness is definitely more like subtle almond nuttiness there's almost a tart smell to it almost similar to Cherry at this age the smells are going to translate to the flavor this is why you would dry age something like to this many days it's going to impart another flavor onto it it's going to be radically different than 20 30 or 40 days way more complex smell therefore a more complex taste if you don't like the smell you're probably not going to like the way that it actually tastes it's crazy it's funny cuz there's like there's no nice words to actually uh describe this because it it's it smells like perspiration it smells like sex like it smells like sex it smells so meaty so so beefy yet with all of the like super Umami driven flavors of blue cheese of aged ham of leather like I am definitely the most excited about this 160 day I was a little skeptical at first I will admit it but I think this is going to be an amazing steak that I'm super excited to cook I'm just going to take a moment with this beauty we just have our 14 day siring we cooked about 5 minutes aside not dry-aged this is just our control measure for our experiment nice texture to it doesn't really have any water loss to it yet so it should just be a nice clean steak that was very easy to slice the muscle fiber itself looks looks really nice the texture of our 50-day steak feels really nice you can tell that it's radically different than our 14-day um you can tell that it's just not holding the same amount of moisture that a younger steak is it has more structure sure it's been lifting some weights muscle fibers in and of themselves are also a little tighter than a younger steak so as our first jump from 14 to 50 days we've greatly surpassed the 21-day Mark of enzymatic breakdown to actually tenderize the steak I think it's really cool to notice that the dry aging process has already drastically changed this steak it already looks and feels better than the 14-day 80-day from dry aging we have two things going on we have the water loss and then we have the enzymatic reaction these proteins actually breaking down boosting flavor enhancing amino acids it's going to make it really nice Brown and crusty on the outside which is upping Umami which is making it even more desirable for us to actually want to eat it and also noticeably there's a thicker more defined crust on the outside from cooking from the myard reaction looks fantastic the fat looks perfectly rendered this just looks like a really really nice steak so even with the water loss we still have a super juicy steak in the process of dry aging the enzymatic reaction that you're going to have really caps out at about 21 days of actually affecting tenderness the moment we've been waiting 160 days for this freaking steak there are parts of it that I know it was a steak but honestly feel like cured salami the way that it feels all of it very similar to the 50 in a 80 day I do think that the rule is true that like you're not going to necessarily gain more tenderness after 21 days there's a really nice hard crust to this which is just a nice example of the mayard reaction I can eat it all super straightforward does taste really clean little sweet it's grassy has nice minerality to it little barnyardy little oyster salinity to it but just a really really nice nice clean fresh steak here we got 50-day dry-aged sirloin you know this is a pretty lean steak but even having to bite with a little bit more of the fat you always pick up more of the age with the fat that's where you're going to get a lot of those flavor compounds and even that was super clean remarkably better texture shocking that I'm not even thinking necessarily about the taste because the texture itself is so much better really interesting and worthwhile to note that while we did pick up some of the molds and and some of the further development in smell really not picking up on that through the taste The Taste is very very clean so I think if you're looking for like the best version of a steak from a farm you know where it came from you really can't beat 50 days just seems like the best option that's a fantastic steak texture of this 80-day steak is really tender very nice great mouth feel great chew a little surprised honestly that we were picking up a lot of different molds and leather smells when I first cut into it and I'm not really picking that up on the flavor still eats really clean actually now that I continue to talk what I am noticing that in my mouth I am getting like a little bit of that parmesan feeling the more I kind of sit with it it's like kind of kind of mellowing out all right I take all of it back I'm totally lying this is phenomenal it just took a minute holy sh that's cool you get a lot of the mold that actually just like comes through but in a very subtle way not in like a Rog for blue cheese sort of way it just kind of again lingers in the back in a really nice like foresty mushroomy way the difference between the 50-day and the 80-day is definitely just the Nuance all of the other Nuance from the smell really come out and they come out in a nice slow easy subdued way that just kind of like sits with you you're ready for your next bite this is a very specific steak experience when you have some super nice ingredients and really want to like celebrate them 80 days is exactly what I would recommend that is truly a dramatic transformation this more resembles a washed rind cheese than it does any of the Blue Notes that we picked up before any of the molds that we picked up before this is actually really subtle the beefiness in and of itself actually feels like it's dialed down a little bit and everything else is actually like melted together in a really subtle way I thought it was going to be way more Punchy way more in your face quite frankly it's not all of the Nuance is just in all of these little undertones that are just lingering in your mouth it's a subtle Sunday afternoon sort of experience that you really want to take your time with you can tell that's still rare it tastes super juicy it doesn't have a lot of juice coming out of it but the texture itself slices and eats more similar to an aged ham than it does to an actual steak the 50 the 80 the 160 the texture was actually very very similar but the flavors were wildly different at 50 we had very straightforward really nice beefy grassy fantastic steak 80 got even more complex and 160 was almost otherworldly in all of the different nuances that the whole thing held final verdict got to say it's better with age if you're looking for dry age either in the butcher shop or at a steakhouse ask yourself what kind of experience do you really want out of this steak talk to your butcher make some decisions about the experience that you want to have we'll guide you in the right direction\n"