oliver_morgan•11h agoProlific Poster

Shoutout to the dry aging bag approach over the whole primal setup

I spent two years using a dedicated dry aging fridge with whole primals hanging in there. Big investment, lots of space, constant humidity battles. Last month a butcher buddy in Knoxville convinced me to try the UMAi dry aging bags on some ribeye subprimals instead. Night and day difference for my small shop. The bags let me use my existing reach-in cooler without any modifications. Plus I got way less waste because the pellicle formed more evenly on the bagged cuts versus the open hanging ones where the outer part got tough. Has anyone else made the switch and noticed the bags actually give you better yield on the final trim?

2 comments

2 Comments

ben_ross5110h ago

My buddy in Nashville runs a small butcher shop and he switched to the bags about eight months ago. He told me his trim loss dropped from almost 18% down to like 11% on his ribeyes. The pellicle thing is real - I tried hanging a strip loin once and the outer inch dried out like shoe leather. Bags just seem to keep everything more even and you don't have to fight with humidity sensors all day long.

felixlee7h ago

Did you notice if the drop in trim loss was just from the ribeyes or did it carry over to other cuts too? Because that 7% difference on something like ribeyes is huge money wise, especially if he's moving a lot of volume. I've seen the same thing with moisture retention where bags just hold that outer layer tighter (even if you don't have a perfect vacuum seal, the meat doesn't shrink like hanging does). The humidity fight is the real killer in open aging too, I had one batch of New Yorks that basically got a hard crust a quarter inch deep because my sensor broke overnight. Bags take that whole variable out of the equation and it makes consistency way easier to hit.