Grilling steak????

[scotcatt]

I've studied and looked and have decided that a Mak 2 General is the best grill for me. I've always been in the cattle and beef business and take a lot of pride in my meat. I used to pick out the steer that I wanted to eat. It had to be on feed a minimum of 150 days with a ration of corn and corn silage. The processor would then age the carcass a minimum of 21 days before cutting it up. My steaks would be 1 3/4 to 2 inches thick and my hamburger would be 80% lean. It was nearly impossible to cook on a gas grill because of flare up so I only cooked on a bed of coals from charcoal/mesquite.

A few years ago, I was in New York and I was told that I could get the best steak of my life at a steak house named Peter Lugers. I laughed, but went there and guess what, It was. They dry aged 21 days and cut porterhouse steaks only. Cooked at 450 to 500 degrees for about 5 minutes, took out and rested a few minutes before finish cooking at a lower temp.

That is what I want to do with my MAK. Am I crazy?????????

 

[MAK DADDY]

Sounds amazing not crazy! I cook our steaks (usually rib eyes) at 450 every time over the flame zone, fantastic!
BP has some good reverse sear recipes as well and the griddle is yet another tool for steaks BP discovered.
Have fun with the MAK so many things to cook and this is a great resource.

 

[MossyMO]

Interesting topic and glad you brought it up... by the way congrats on your Mak 2 General decision!
My wife and I just got a dry bag aging kit designed for strip loin (New York Strip), boneless ribeye (ribeye) and top butt (sirloin). It comes with a vacuum sealer and meats can be aged in the bag while refrigerated up to 3 weeks; I very excited to try it out!

 

[scooter]

No Scott, that's not crazy at all. It's the best way to cook a thick steak. Cooking the interior meat and the external meat differently. A super hot grill for the exterior browning (maillard) and an low heat oven or immersion cooker for the interior meat. Us pellet smokers can use our pellet pits to do both while adding a kiss of smoke flavor in the process

 

[scotcatt]

You are wet aging. Dry aging is hanging the carcass in a cooler. I sometimes will buy a box of cry-o-vaced rib eyes direck from the meat packer and just put them in a fridge for 2 or 3 weeks before cutting up into individual steaks. There is research that shows that 15 days gets nearly the maximum benefit. I'm nervous about revacuum. I'd reccommend starting with small amount first. Aging is main secret to quality.

 

[MossyMO]

You are wet aging. Dry aging is hanging the carcass in a cooler. I sometimes will buy a box of cry-o-vaced rib eyes direck from the meat packer and just put them in a fridge for 2 or 3 weeks before cutting up into individual steaks. There is research that shows that 15 days gets nearly the maximum benefit. I'm nervous about revacuum. I'd reccommend starting with small amount first. Aging is main secret to quality.

If you search UMAi Drybag steak, research the product and watch the video's, I believe you will agree it is dry aging of meat. Hanging a carcass in a cooler is also another method of dry aging.

 

[sparky]

I believe you will agree it is dry aging of meat. Hanging a carcass in a cooler is also another method of dry aging.

does this really make a steak taste better? i have never aged anything. go to butcher, come home, fire up grill, eat. my wife would think the meat was bad for sitting for to long. don't ya have to look at the experation date? these are good questions from a city boy.

 

[cowdog]

Sparky, yes, in my experience, aging meat does add to the flavor and tenderness of a steak if done properly. I have only wet-aged a steak before, for 4 days using cheese cloth, and it was a surprisingly better steak. I have never dry-aged, but have been to steak houses that dry age and the steaks are fantastic! Some local butchers near you may offer aged beef.

 

[omahajs]

does this really make a steak taste better? i have never aged anything. go to butcher, come home, fire up grill, eat. my wife would think the meat was bad for sitting for to long. don't ya have to look at the experation date? these are good questions from a city boy.

Sparky, personal preference but I say definitely - nice flavor and much more tender. Buy a whole ribeye, strip etc that is already vacuum packaged in a Cryovac bag, put in fridge and turn over every couple of days. Try 7 days first, then increase until you get the flavor & tenderness you like best. I prefer closer to 14 or more. *Don't do this if the bag is leaking.

 

[Salmonsmoker]

I checked out mossy's post re: UMAi drybag steak. It looks legit, and won an award from the National Restaurant Association. (thanks mossy) One could probably take a cryovacced subprimal, remove from the bag and put it in the UMAi to dry age.

 

[scooter]

As I know it, the theory behind dry aging accomplishes two things 1) evaporation of moisture intensifying the flavors and 2) more time for tenderizing enzymes to work their magic. In high end steak houses they accomplish this using a specially designed (read EXPENSIVE) dry aging room where the temp and humidity are closely monitored and then charge their customers a handsome price for their dry aged beef. Most home enthusiasts will find building a dry aging room in their house a costly proposition especially if the reward is only their beef will taste better and be more tender.
Enter the Umai/Drybag Steak company. What they offer is an option to the home enthusiast that is a cost effective way to accomplish nearly the same results the high end steak houses get (with their expensive dry aging rooms) using only a specially designed plastic bag and a vacuum sealer similar to the one most of you already have (with one big difference though, will address later). The theory behind the drybag is the material the bag is made from. The drybag has pores that are big enough to allow water molecules to pass through but small enough to prevent air molecules from passing through.
It works like this, put a whole rib roast in the bag, use their vacuum sealer (learned this the hard way) to suck all the air out of the bag, seal it then put it in your fridge on a wire rack to allow air circulation all around the roast and let it sit their while the low humidity in your fridge slowly pulls the moisture out of the meat.
This works best if you have an extra fridge in your garage that rarely gets opened where low temp and low humidity can do their work. However, most of us only have one fridge and it's in our kitchens. Every time a kitchen fridge gets opened, humidity and temp shoot up and it takes a while for the fridge to recover so drybag aging a big cut of meat in a family fridge will encounter endless recovery sessions as family members open/close the fridge door. A steady low humidity and temp are optimal to the process. Along with that, my wife's (get where I'm going with this?) fridge already has a large collection of half used BBQ sauce bottles, Minor's meat bases, marinades, beef fat, Parkay, rib mop etc in it that when I throw in a 18lb rib roast to dry age (meaning nothing can be touching it to allow water vapor to escape) the tension in the house goes up exponentially as the hours/days tick off toward the goal of 21 days of dry aging. So, at least in my house (and some of yours I suspect), an extra fridge in the garage would allow for a more steady temp and humidity environment AND would significantly lower the tension in our house where all my BBQ stuff in HER fridge already creates a high sense of awareness of how much space my typical BBQ stuff is already taking in her fridge let alone adding a 20lb hunk of beef to dry age.
OK, as I talked about earlier, the drybag steak bag company sells a specially designed vacuum sealer to work with their dry bags. It uses a little snorkel. Some folks have reported success using their Vacuseal sealers to get suck the air out of the drybags then get a good seal so I researched the heck out of it and tried it myself. Well, the drybag material is very different than Vacuseal bags and I never could get all the air out before I got the seal to work. It's very important to get ALL the air out of the dry bag. So basically I ruined $25 worth of dry bags trying to make my Vacusealer work like the one the DryBag folks sell which works with the type material the bags are made of. After my failed experiments I thought about purchasing the $116 vacuum sealer the drybag folks sell but I felt it best, in order to ensure domestic tranquility in the scooter household, that I secure a second fridge in the garage before I attempt dry aging at home again.

 

[Salmonsmoker]

What's probably happening with a standard Food Saver vac packer is that the pressure to create the seal around the exterior of the bag is also sealing off the inside of the bag and all the air can't be drawn out. The retractable snorkel extends past the sealing point and when all air is drawn out the snorkel retracts and then the bag can be sealed. The bags are not like the "quilted" food saver bags. I have a vac packer- not a food saver and have found a different supply for my vac bags(pre-sized and sealed one end) They have a quilted micro layer inside on one side of the bag that allows the bag to exhaust and is plenty thin to allow sealing after. I'm willing to bet a piece of that would work. I may give it a try.

 

[scooter]

Exactly Salmonsmoker, the quilts are not on the drybag and the snorkel fixes that. I tried using a piece of a straw which didn't work. Also cut a sleeve from a large Vacuseal bag to use inside the mouth of the drybag which also didn't work. Add on the fact that the drybag material is much thinner and when I tried to seal it well with my Foodsaver it would cut through the material sometimes.

 

[scotcatt]

Best advice I've heard, thanks forom beef people.

 

[scooter]

Forgot to mention, the size bags I bought were for whole rib roasts and were wider than my Food Saver so also had to improvise by sealing the edges at a 45 degree angle so only the center section of the dry bag needed to get the final seal.