I was dead wrong about dry aging in a bag

For years I told customers those umai bags were a gimmick. Thought you needed a real walk-in cooler with fans and humidity control to get proper dry aging. Then I tried a 45 day prime ribeye in one last winter just to prove myself right. The crust was solid, the flavor was concentrated, and I lost way less weight than my usual method. Has anyone else had good results with those or am I still missing something?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_kim318h ago

You mentioned you lost less weight - was that just from less trimming needed or did the bag actually hold in more moisture than you expected?

anthony_lane5511h ago

Jumping right in... yeah the weight loss thing surprised me too. It's not that the bag holds in moisture like a wet age. The bag lets moisture escape slowly through the membrane but stops the big drips you get in a normal cooler. With a regular dry age setup you lose a lot of water weight just from the air moving around all the time. The umai bag kind of traps that moisture close to the meat so it reabsorbs some of it over time. Less trimming needed too because the crust isn't as thick and hard. That means more edible meat at the end.