Well decided I'd try a little experiment for this Christmas season, and dry age my own steaks. Bought a mini fridge for about $100 at Home Depot (wanted a new one perfectly clean for this) and a USB fan to put inside. Purchased a whole prime grade 26.8lb bone in beef rib roast at Costco for $8.50/lb. Planning to go for +/- 45 days on this first attempt so it will be interesting but not too funky.

Initial product as purchased in package.



Then had to trim some off and deal with it since it was too big to fit in the fridge. Having some "extra" of the original unaged prime ribeye to deal with was a problem easily solved.



Placed the rest in the mini fridge to start the process on Nov 5. Put my BBQ thermometer in to watch the temp and make sure the fridge was dialed in to about 38F.



Had to leave on a trip for two weeks for work. Wife monitored the temp as staying steady at 38-39F. Came back and looks like it's doing well at 2 weeks in.




Dec 20 Update:
Well it's been 45 days, and that's all I wanted to do for this first attempt since it's for a family gathering. Pulled out and ready to make some steaks.




Took the bones off first as I didn't want to carve extra thick bone in steaks since I needed at least 6 steaks and knew the ends would need to be trimmed a bit. Then it was time to break it down.



Final count was 7.3lbs Of trimmed steaks, 8 in all though one was small. The kids need to eat too though. My original piece that went in the fridge was about 21 lbs with bone and fat cap. Not sure how that works out compared to how others fared, but it ended up at $24/lb for final product.

Lt. Joe Bookman said:

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Tell me more about the umai bags.

Can you dry age individually cut steaks?

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You seal them into the bags and it allows moisture to leave without the steak adsorbing random odors from the refrigerator. You still have to use large cuts of meat as the moisture loss from a single steak would be significant.

Here are a few I have going now.



And a time lapse video I made of me trimming one I made last year.

I wouldn't recommend dry aging individual steaks. If the surface drys out, you will have to trim up each steak. It would be better to age a whole cut. You will get better yields for sure.

Since I needed six for the party later this month and had seven good ones, we did get to do a quality check last night.



No really funky flavors at all, was just very tender and had an extra beefy flavor. Had a hint of almost cured like flavor, edging towards bacon. The eye was almost as tender as the cap would be on an unaged steak.

I also noticed that while I typically wouldn't eat any of the fat because it would be too chewy, I could leave on a bit as it was more tender and buttery. I wouldn't eat a hunk of it alone, but was very good with the meat.

Just pulled the first of mine. I was planning on going for 45 e holidays messed with my time table and I ended up with 48 instead. I'm going to let the other two go to 60 days and then reevaluate.

Here is a picture of my bone in ribeye roast before trimming. I didn't actually lose as much mass as I thought I might... the starting weight was 19# and after aging but prior to trimming it clocked in at 16.5#


And a couple of steaks from the roast (I ended up with 12 total)


And the finished product... Overall it was a damn good steak with a very beefy flavor and a little funk but I'm looking forward to 60 days and beyond.