Why is beef and venison aged? How is beef aged? What does the aging do to meat? Can all meat be aged? Just a few of the questions I hear from people. Now, here for all to read is my answer to all the questions above.

Why is beef and venison aged?
Beef and venison are aged for two main reasons. The first is to make the meat tenderer. The second reason is to enhance the flavour. During the aging process moisture evaporates from the muscle creating a concentration of flavour.
How is beef aged?
Beef and venison is aged in one of two ways. One way and the best way is to age meat with what is called dry aging. Dry aging is the process by which the beef is stored in a cooler at a specific temperature between 3 Celsius to 4 Celsius, (38F to 40F), for 10 to 28 days. In this process the beef hangs split in two halves or whole quarters and always with the bone in, to avoid dry out and excessive weight loss.
Another way to age beef and venison is called wet aging. The difference here is that the meat can be normal processed and even cut to steaks, if desired, and then it is vacuum packed. This process of aging meat is much faster and without any loss of weight due to dry out and spoiled outer layer of meat. However,  wet aging will not increase the flavour of the meat that many people, including me, desire. The reason for this is that the humidity does not evaporate from the muscle and thus there is no concentration of flavour molecules.
What does the aging do to meat?
Aging does two things to meat, notice everything here comes in twos. One aspect I just described above, the moisture evaporating, so we skip that and move to the second part, which is the natural tenderizer. Aging makes the meat tender. How does that happen? Well, as the meat hangs or is vacuum packed and stored for some time a change happens in form of enzymes, which multiply and begin to break down the fibrous tissue. Depending at the age of the animals, how they have been feed and how tender the meat is desired these enzymes are going to be busy between 7 to 26 days, any longer then that and the enzymes are beginning to die off turning in to bad bacteria and meat rot sets in.
Can all meat be aged?
As a rule it is best only to age beef and wild game such as deer, elk, buffalo and moose. Do not age any pork or hog and sheep or goat meat. Why not? Sheep and goat develop to much flavouring giving the meat even more "mutton taste" which many people not appreciate. Pork has an acid that turns sour, giving pork a distinct sour taste. The beef recommended to age comes from healthy animals with a good layer of fat. DO NOT age beef from emergency slaughtering. Fat on beef and wild game is good because it serves as a moisture barrier, meaning it prevents that the meat dries out and thus there will not be so much meat to waist. For my money I rather cut of spoiled fat then spoiled meat.