What does dry aged beef mean? Aging beef is allowing time between the harvest of cattle for beef and consuming the beef. The purpose of allowing this time is to allow the natural enzymes present in the beef to breakdown the muscle and connective tissue fibers in the meat resulting in more tender beef, and in some cases an improved in flavor. Beef can be "wet-aged" in a shrink wrap bag or "dry aged" with temperature and humidity controlled air circulating around the beef. Most beef today is wet aged, but for widely varying lengths of time from just a few days to a few weeks. This variable length of time results in noticeable differences in tenderness, and sometimes flavors, between seemingly same sources of beef. Dry aging can be done in the traditional manner with the whole carcass hanging in a "cooler", or by allowing primals, like a whole rib, to sit on a shelf in a special dry age cooler. Dry aging can be done for 1 week to several weeks, especially in the case of primals aged in a special dry age cooler room. Authentic Beef Ranches dry ages all its beef by hanging it in the traditional manner, so all the beef is dry aged, not just the ribs and loins. The result is consistently tender beef with a delicious, true beef flavor in all the steaks, roasts and even the ground beef. This takes much more care to the details of making great tasting beef, but that's what we do. We do it because we care. That's what Authentic Beef Ranches is all about.
~Mike and Shannon