Finally, on January 5th, after 26 days of aging, I pulled the quarters from the pole. I hadn't seen a fresh drop of blood in days, and even quit covering the hood of the truck. The quarters now weighed 15% less than when I started the process. That loss is due to blood (and water) and according to the good
Chef McGannon, one of the keys to succulent meat.
Mold (and even some slime) had also begun to form on much of the meat. Most of us have heard an ol' timer say that is when they used to start tasting fine, and they're right.
Don't let the mold freak you out, as it will all be trimmed off when you remove the 1/4" dry layer. Another advantage to dry aging is if you happened to get your meat dirty in the field (and everyone knows how hard it is to keep hair off), all that will go with the 1/4" trim.
Your meat will be cleaner than ever. At least some of the time that I lose trimming the dry meat would have been spent picking hair and dirt off an unaged buck.
I spent the next few hours trimming, cutting steaks, roasts, stew meat, and trim for burger.
There was virtually no blood on my cutting board. Compare this pic of my cutting board to pic #8 in post #1.
The meat had lost it's typical rubbery texture. It yields to finger pressure and is slightly darker than unaged meat.
I did have to trim more than normal due to starting with boned out meat and all that surface area, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's still always preferable to age the deer whole and reduce the surface area exposed to air.
I finished wrapping all the steaks, roasts, stew meat and refroze the trim for the burger until I had time to grind.
Once the burger was ground, I pulled everything out of the freezer and weighed it.
I had 50 lbs of prime dry aged meat. I started with 78lbs of unaged boned out meat, so lost 28lbs to blood/water loss and trim. Not near all of that 28 is due to aging, as even an unaged buck will have many pounds of trim, especially if the meat is dirty. I'd guess I'm doubling the amount of trim due to the dry age process.
I don't know how much the buck weighed on the hoof. He wasn't huge, so maybe 225-250lb live weight as a rough estimate.
So I retained 20-22% of the meat in they very worst case scenario (dry aging boned out meat.) I think I've read unaged meat will get you closer to 30-35% of live weight. Only you can decide if it's worth the loss. As for me, I'll take the hit 7 days out of 7.
Now for the good stuff. I heated a 12" cast-iron skillet with a few Tbs of canola oil to almost a smoke and seared both sides of a salt-n-peppered steak cut from the top of the front shoulder, for about a minute per side, killed the heat and covered the skillet with another 12" cast-iron skillet and let the meat finish.
While front shoulder meat isn't known for tenderness, this piece was great. Knife cut all the way through with one slice and really tender with little effort to chew. No strong gamey flavor, just the savory almost-mild flavor you'd expect from a cow elk. The loins and sirloins are going to be even better.
About a week later, I unthawed the burger trim in a refrigerator for four days, then worked with Sophia to finish up the entire project.
I ground this burger with no added beef or pork suet. I did do a few pounds with a big piece of tallow from the buck.
I'd fried some of the tenderloin in camp in the tallow and it was delicious. I'll have to chime in later after I've tried the burger. For that night, I just grilled up the fresh burger with no added fat. Had to be careful when handling it as it can fall apart more easily without the fat.
I added three pieces of Genoa salami to the top, then a piece of cheddar cheese over that, stuffed it all in a whole wheat bun with some light mayo.
While technically you don't need to age burger for the tenderization that it provides (as the grinder takes care of that) biting into this burger reminded me that the flavor enhancement from dry aging is worth all the effort it takes to pull this method off.
