Hot take: wet aging in a cooler bag actually works better than my walk-in

I had 3 rib primals sitting around for a farmer's market demo that got cancelled, so I wrapped them in vacuum bags and tossed them in a cheap igloo cooler with ice packs for 14 days. The tenderness was spot on and I saved like $60 in electric costs, has anyone else tried a ghetto wet aging setup like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

juliag101mo agoOG Member

Have you tried swapping the ice packs for frozen water bottles instead? I did something similar with a pork loin in a Coleman cooler last summer, just rotated out a couple frozen 2-liters every 3 days. The temp held steady around 38F the whole time and the meat came out super tender with no off smells. My electric bill was like $10 less that month too which was a nice bonus.

danielw881mo ago

You know, you might be onto something there. Frozen water bottles are basically the same concept as ice packs but way cheaper and you don't have to worry about them leaking gel all over your meat. I tried it once with a brisket I was dry aging in my garage fridge and the only downside was my wife kept stealing the water bottles to drink because she said they "tasted like pork aftertaste." Guess that's what happens when you share freezer space with science experiments. At least your electric bill went down mine went up because I kept opening the freezer to check on everything like a nervous parent.