Do you remember the good old days when your sweet Aunt Millie went down to the local butcher shoppe, and had that roast she was going to serve trimmed just the way she wanted it? This is not a thing of the past! Our processor still cuts the beef according to our customer's preferences. Do you want your steaks 1" or 2"? Do you want your 2-3lb. roasts or 3-4lb. roasts? Just let us know!
Another advantage to having your beef custom processed, is that dry aged beef is much more tender and juicy than wet aged beef. It has an appealing rosy-red color and produces a wonderful meaty aroma when cooked. “What is dry aged beef?” you may ask. Forty years ago, most of our beef was dry aged. In the early 1960's the process of vacuum packing beef became the norm for most processors. The advantage of this process was that they could "wet age" the beef in the bag and not lose any of the weight of the beef (remember – you’re paying by weight). Most of the beef offered for sale as retail cuts at supermarkets is wet aged only 5 to 7 days, which would be called moderately aged beef. It is found that beef tenderness increases with aging up to 11 days. So something aged less than that may be a bit on the tough side. Today 99% of Supermarkets sell wet aged beef.
Dry aging is an art that requires extensive training and knowledge.
This process takes special care and requires a relatively large inventory. The beef is aged in the open air at controlled temperature between 34 F and 38 F with an ambient humidity level adjusted between 50% and 75% for two to three weeks. During this time, the beef looses moisture and develops flavor. During this process a crust forms on the outside of the loin, very similar to the texture of beef jerky. This layer is trimmed away, leaving steaks that are superior in tenderness and flavor. Dry aging is more costly due to the loss in shrinkage and extra trim required, time, storage, refrigerator space, and labor. Yet, the texture, flavor and tenderness benefits mean dry aging far outweighs the added cost. The result is a steak that is bolder, extremely tender, and has a buttery taste. This is why dry aged steak is offered only in fine restaurants, upscale grocery stores and gourmet steak companies.
We process our steers at a local WI state inspected facility, where experienced meat cutters dry-age our beef for peak tenderness and flavor, and then carefully trim and expertly cut the carcass. The product is shrink-wrapped and flash-frozen to seal in the goodness. Extensive research by Oklahoma State University and Kansas State University indicates that flash freezing preserves the flavor, and in fact, even the most discriminating chef could not tell the difference between fresh and flash frozen beef.
