Title: How to Dry Age Beef
Headings: How to Dry Age Beef
How to Dry Age Beef
With careful attention and patience, it's possible to dry age beef at home, for steaks with unparalleled flavor and tenderness.
The Purpose of Aging
How does aging work?
But is aged meat really better than fresh meat?
Okay, I'm sold. Why would I possibly want to do it at home when I can order it online or from my butcher?
Selecting Meat to Age
What cut of meat should I buy for aging?
What's the minimum size I'll need to buy for proper aging? Can I age an individual steak?
So, of the larger cuts of meat, what should I look for?
What Causes Flavor Change?
So why does meat that's being aged stop losing moisture after the first few weeks?
Aging Setup
What sort of setup do I really need for aging steak at home? How simple is it?
Timing
Okay, I'm nearly convinced. How long should I be aging my meat for?
I've Got Some More Questions!
What about wet-aging? What is it, and does it work?
What about those fancy "dry-aging bags" I've been reading so much about?
Quick and Dirty
Okay, just give me the tl;dr version. How do I age my steak?
Further Reading
Get The Recipes:

Content: Nope, unfortunately, you can't age individual steaks. ( See here for more details as to why not .) You can wrap them in cheesecloth or paper towels, set them on a rack, and leave them in the fridge for about a week, but during that time, no detectable level of texture or flavor changes will take place. Try to age them even longer, and (assuming they don't start rotting)*, here's what you get: Forty-five-day individually dry-aged rib steak. *In my experience, this can happen when the cheesecloth or paper towel holds moisture against the meat and you don't have enough ventilation. The meat is so dried out as to be completely inedible. After trimming away the desiccated and slightly moldy bits (perfectly normal for dry-aged meat), I was left with a sliver of meat about a half centimeter thick. It was impossible to cook to anything lower than well-done, making my effective yield a big fat zero. The simple truth is that in order to dry-age, you need larger cuts of meat, and you need to age them in open air.