Changed my mind on dry aging after a tough week in February

I used to think dry aging was mostly hype, just a way to charge people more for less meat. Then we had a week last month where our walk-in cooler broke on a Monday and we lost about $1,400 of product we'd already prepped. While we were scrambling to reorganize what was left, our owner brought in a couple of aged primals from a guy he knows in Amarillo and told me to break them down. The smell alone was different, kind of nutty, and the trim loss was way more than I expected, like 20 percent. But once I cut into it and saw the color, and then we cooked a few steaks on the flat top for the crew, I got it. The taste was deeper, almost like the beef had more to say. I had been trimming and selling fresh for six years and thought I knew what good beef was. Now I'm the one asking when we can get more. Anybody here doing their own aging setup at a small shop, or is it just not worth the space and loss for most of us?

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patking20d ago

February is brutal for that kind of loss. Our old shop had the same thing happen, compressor died on a Friday and we tossed close to $900 in trim and ground. After that mess the owner got two strip loins from a guy in Clovis and I broke them down myself. Lost about 18 percent to trim but the steaks off the flat top tasted like a whole different animal. I was a fresh beef guy for years too. Now I keep bugging him about a small fridge for aging.

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