THE SET-UP

The magic begins with the right environment.

Strictly speaking, all you really need for a home dry-ageing set-up is fridge space, a fan and a rack.

The fridge should ideally be kept at a temperature between 0 and 4 deg C, with humidity at 75 to 85 per cent. The fan is to HQVXUH FRQVWDQW DLUŴRZ so the meat can dry as quickly as possible. This is also why a rack or a perforated shelf is necessary. A small stand-alone fan can achieve this.

If you don’t want the hassle of setting all of that up, there are dedicated drying cabinets that will take away the guesswork and self-regulate the environment. There are various sizes to suit your ageing needs, from mini fridge-sized boxes for 20kg of cuts to massive towers for carnivorous consumers wanting to age whole ribs and loins.

Cabinets like the ones Dry Ager offers include convenient features like temperature controls with 0.1-degree increments, humidity controls, active carbon ƓOWHUV DQG 89 VWHULOLVDWLRQ systems, as well as glass doors so you can watch the progress. Fridges by Steak Locker have a companion app to pair with its cabinets so you can monitor the microclimate at all times.

To amp up the flavour during the ageing process, consider investing in a salt wall or at least a few salt blocks to place in the fridge or cabinet.

The salt helps further reduce humidity in the chamber and ionisation between the particles found in the salt and meat contribute WR HYHQ PRUH ŴDYRXU