the beginning, lower as the aging progressed).
I found that the more protection you have, the better your
final yield. Why does exterior protection matter when aging
meat? Because when you dry-age meat for any length of
time that’s enough to make a difference, the exterior layers
get completely desiccated and so must be trimmed away.
The less protected the “good” meat, the more of it you’ll
have to throw in the trash.
Provided you start with a 109A or another cut with the fat
cap intact, your yield will amount to basically the equivalent
of a regular roast. If you imagine your prime rib as a long
cylinder, the only meat you’ll end up losing is at either end.
The fat cap and bones will completely protect the sides.
What Causes Flavor Changes During Dry-Aging?
Q: So aged meat doesn’t really lose much moisture. But
wait a minute, haven’t I read that aged steaks can lose up
to 30 percent of their weight in water? Isn’t that one of
the reasons why aged steak is so expensive?
Don’t believe everything you read. That 30 percent figure is
deceptive at best and an outright lie at worst. Yes, it’s true
that if you dry-age an untrimmed, bone-on, fat-cap-intact
prime rib, you’ll end up losing about 30 percent of its total
weight over the course of 21 to 30 days or so. What “they”
don’t tell you is that the weight is almost exclusively lost
from the outer layers—that is, the portion of the meat that
would be trimmed off anyway, regardless of whether it is
aged or not.
Has it never struck you as just a little bit odd that the aged
rib-eye steaks in the butcher’s display case aren’t 30 percent