range, the higher the temperature, the faster
the enzymes work. Some accelerated “aging”
can take place during cooking. If meat is
quickly seared or blanched in boiling water to
eliminate microbes on its surface, and then
heated up slowly during the cooking — for
example, by braising or roasting in a slow
oven — then the aging enzymes within the
meat can be very active for several hours
before they denature. Large 50 lb/23 kg slow-
roasted “steamship” rounds of beef spend 10
hours or more rising to 120–130ºF/50–55ºC,
and come out more tender than small portions
of the same cut cooked quickly.
Aging Meat in Plastic and in the Kitchen
Despite the contribution that aging can make
to meat quality, the modern meat industry
generally avoids it, since it means tying up its
assets in cold storage and losing about 20% of
the meat’s original weight to evaporation and
laborious trimming of the dried, rancid,