Why don't steaks go bad when aging
Actually, they do! All that brown toughness that forms around a steak is literally just rotting, dehydrated meat / beef. But it’s this rotting process that also breaks down the proteins so it’s way more tender. The rotten brown part is always trimmed off by a butcher afterwards, because it’s essentially like munching on a wooden stick.
But I’m guessing you're asking why doesn’t it get really bad, as in dangerously bad? Well, it’s not the ageing that would be dangerous, it’s the rise of bacteria. But if you keep the meat / beef dry, and away from any water sources, then dry it in a cool, dry place like a specialty fridge (hence, dry-aged meat), the issue of dangerous bacteria doesn’t come into play, as most dangerous such organisms need a moist place to grow.
Oh, and if you’re wondering how long this can be done, it’s about 31 days at minimum to notice the effects. Any longer than that, and the meat stops becoming more tender, and instead becomes more rigid due to the dehydration. Also, the tenderness breakdown process has hit its generally accepted peak and the meat will still be edible by most diners. But that’s the TENDERNESS PART. Now what about the taste?
@Terry Lo
You could still continue to age it up to four months (and now I’ve gotten reports from readers that they’ve seen up to a YEAR and even a new trend of letting it actually grow MOLD), but the general idea is that the flavor becomes much much more concentrated. Think of boiling down a HUGE pot of chicken bones and water over a day or more to get it to what’s essentially concentrated chicken broth. In steaks, this is essentially the same effect, with the higher-end restaurants doing this up to 45 to 60 to even 90 days (I haven’t heard of any that goes to 120). By this time, the steaks lose about 25 to 35% of their mass, as the proteins and flavor become way more concentrated. Oh, and the cost goes way up as well.
However, a lot of people also consider steaks this well aged to be a bit… “funny” in flavor. I’ve read about some people describing it as grabbing a glass of water, and putting a full beef bullion cube into it and then drinking it straight.
PS Jan 26th - I’ve been getting all sorts of answers the last week or so about places that have been dry aging their beef for up to a year, and even way past mold and so on. I’ll write a follow up to this exploration into beef dry aging soon once I’ve properly caught up into this, but I will say that the beef is simply getting more and more concentrated in flavor and smaller in volume as it’s kinda like becoming a huge concentrated beef jerky slab so far as I can tell.
