Had to choose between dry aging beef in-house or sticking with pre-aged boxes from the supplier

We had a big decision at our shop a few months back. The owner wanted us to start dry aging our own primal cuts to stand out from the grocery stores. I was all for it at first until I saw the setup cost and the space it would take up in our walk-in. We only have one cooler and it's already packed with orders. The alternative was to keep using the pre-aged boxes from our supplier in Denver who does a 28 day dry age for us. I picked staying with the supplier because I could not afford to lose that much fridge space or risk wasting meat if something went wrong. So far it has been the right call. We get consistent product and I don't have to babysit a whole rack of beef for a month. Has anyone else here gone the DIY route and made it work in a small shop?

2 comments

2 Comments

brooke47511d ago

Man that's exactly the kind of thing that sounds cool until you realize how much space and risk is involved. I've heard horror stories from places that lost whole primals to mold or bad airflow and that's just not worth it for a small shop.

lee62711d ago

That mold problem is no joke, it can wipe out years of work overnight. @brooke475 you're right about the airflow too, even a small mistake there and you're basically asking for trouble with how sensitive that stuff is. Why risk all that time and money when you could just scale back and do it right?