Is it a good idea to dry age lean beef steak?

Question

Is it a good idea to dry age lean beef steak.

I mean extremely lean

Answer 1

The short answer is, you can, but it's a waste of time.

Here's a good video showing a dry aging experiment on an eye round.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfjIIK6qt-g

The longer answer is you certainly CAN dry age pretty much any cut of beef. Regardless of what cut you use, you will lose moisture and develop a more beefy flavor. For a cut with nice marbling, the moisture loss is mitigated by the marbling which still keeps the end result tender and flavorful. For a lean cut though, you both lose moisture AND you have little to no intramuscular fat to make up for it, so you wind up with little more than dry protein, like an overcooked chicken breast.

From personal experience, I've bought dry aged steaks (ribeyes, porterhouse, etc - not exactly lean cuts) in markets that were made from Choice cuts because of the cost, and honestly I prefer non-dry-aged to these. Again you get the flavor but there's just not enough marbling to make up for the moisture loss and the texture suffers for it.

You could try WET aging a lean cut however, and better still salt it first before the vacuum seal. You will get the tenderizing benefits of wet aging and the salt will osmose throughout the meat making for a very delicious meal from lean, presumably fairly cheap beef.

Answer 2

Beef works well, and yes it is a great idea if you enjoy jerky. Typically I use venison (deer meat) but that isn't always available so I have used beef. Ground meat can be used as well with something like a jerky gun. Just make sure your cut of meat is very lean, slice strips thin, marinate and maintain your temperature between 155 and 165 for approximately 8-10 hrs.