Steak Aging Goes Beyond Weeks to Months for Some Chefs

[goodsamaritan]

Steak Aging Goes Beyond Weeks to Months for Some Chefs

The hottest menu item at New York restaurants may be a plate of rotting beef.

Dining spots around town are offering steaks that have been aged anywhere from 90 to 180 days, pushing the limits well beyond the typical aging period of 21 to 45 days. Restaurateurs and chefs say the added time allows for greater tenderness and depth of flavor than the norm.

“I’ve been describing it like the taste of roasted hazelnuts and dehydrated mushrooms,” says Billy Oliva, executive chef of Delmonico’s. The lower Manhattan restaurant is marking its 180th anniversary by offering a 180-day dry-aged bone-in rib eye, served on a keepsake plate, for $380. The special is offered through Oct. 14.

There is also the care that chefs take to make sure the beef, which generally sits in a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment, doesn’t develop too much “green fuzz,” as Mr. Oliva calls such unchecked growth.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/steak-aging-goes-beyond-weeks-to-months-for-some-chefs-1505653202

[TylerDurden]

The catch re the above is that I have been informed that this so-called "aging" is always done at chilling-temperature(ie 2 to 4 degrees Celsius), so high enough to avoid freezing of the meat, but low enough to slow down aging.