UMAi Dry Revolutionizes the Dry Aging Process
Dry-aged beef products have conventionally been a niche item in the upscale restaurant and food service businesses. UMAi Dry allows any processor or restaurateur to age beef, lamb, pork, buffalo, elk and other meat in an ordinary refrigeration unit. UMAi Dry's unique permeable material creates a membrane around the aging meat that protects it from outside contamination, odors and mold. The result is a perfectly clean dry-aged steak worthy of praise by the pickiest connoisseur.
History of Dry Aging
For centuries, dry aging was a common way for butchers to preserve and tenderize beef. Dry aging is a costly endeavor due to temperature control, relative humidity, and air flow needed for proper dry aging to occur to achieve proper moisture loss. Also, since dry-aged subprimal cuts must be evenly distributed to ensure proper drying, a greater amount of cooler space is required. As dry aging time is extended, fabrication loss, trimming time and amount of trim is increased (Campbell et al., 2001). Although wet-aged beef represents the majority of aging systems (> 95%), there are still some meat purveyors producing traditionally dry-aged product for upscale restaurants and hotels.
History of Wet Aging
In comparison to the outdated dry aging process, wet aged products can be stacked and boxed while aging, not requiring as much cooler space. With the introduction of vacuum packaged boxed beef, wet aging is currently the most commonly used aging practice. Wet aging has allowed the beef industry to store boxed beef in refrigerated storage rooms and distribution warehouses in a strategic manner for any number of days. This provides the processor with increased flexibility to age meat and produces a more consistent product. Since most subprimal meats are vacuum-packaged before cutting into steaks or roasts, wet aging can also take place during shipping.
Now there’s a better way to get the preferred flavor of dry aging with a safer process that requires less refrigeration space. UMAi Dry gives allows you to offer customers unique culinary choices that they will crave and your bottom line will appreciate.