How exactly do you "hang" beef?

Question

Hi, I enjoy eating Aberdeen Angus steak. I usually buy sirloin from our local butcher during the week, keep it on a shelf in the refridgerator ( not freezer) until the weekend, then cook it at the weekend.

HOWEVER we were recently at a restaurant and I was impressed by how tender their sirloin was. I mentioned this to the manager as we were leaving and he said "we always HANG their beef for at least ten days before cooking it...." (?)


So my question is, how exactly does one "hang" beef? I can find very little on this subject on the internet, and what I have found is contradictory. I imagine you'd need to have some dialogue with the butcher to determine how old the beef already is when you buy it, but at what temperature shoudl it be stored while it's "hanging"...?

Answer 1

First of all you have to understand that meat of any kind is muscle tissue.

Beef is hung to make it tender, when a cow is killed for its meat it is generally tough, you have to hang it for around 21 days for it to be at its best. This is an expensive process as each carcass is worth approx £800, and the meat is sitting in the fridge and not earning money for a business so some (All supermarkets) do not hang beef for very long as they can not afford to do so, also the longer a piece of beef is hung the more the water present in the meat will evapourate, the less it will weigh....the less the butcher can get for it

Animals are killed, skinned and gutted, then split in half and hung in fridges on hooks at 5 degrees centegrade, it needs to be chilled so food poisoning bacteria can not grow. All meat has enzymes naturally in the muscle structure and the enzymes start to in effect digest the muscle structure and this improves flovour and makes it more tender.

Therefore a piece of beef that has been hung for 5 days will be less tasty than a piece that has been hung for 21 days

(Hope this makes some sense)

Answer 2

Have you have ever seen the film "Rocky"? In particular, the bit where he is training in a cold room by punching pig carcasses?
It is exactly the same as that, only with cow carcass.
If you hang the side of sirloin (beef still on the bone)in a cold room, it stops the blood from settling and rotting the meat.
The meat still starts to decompose, but as the blood is not being allowed to pool, it does so much more slowly, making the meat much more tender and flavoursome. You could do it at home if you have a large enough cupboard or old fashioned larder and a meat hook, but you'd really have to love your steak, as it only last about 2 weeks. You can't really hang a single steak as the outside will harden and you won't have much meat left to cook by the time you have cut it away.
The best temperature is around 4-9 degrees centigrade (same as or slightly warmer than your fridge).
If you ask your butcher how long he hangs his beef and how long the current side has been hanging, he will (usually) be more than happy to tell you. The best butchers take great pride in the way they mature their beef.

Answer 3

Beef is normally hung up for about ten days at the butchers so that the blood drips out. I would have thought this was done in the UK. In Australia I had a special compartment in my fridge called a meat saver, which was just under the freezer compartment, and I used to buy steak on Thursdays to eat at the weekend. By then the compartment was full of blood.
If you cook red meat when it still has blood in it, it'll be tough.
Suddenly the Halal/Kosher slaughter method makes sense.

Answer 4

Hi hanging beef is just part of the natural killing process ,after it is killed its hung in a chiller for two days (48 hours) normally,at just below 5 deg(this stops the meat from rotting as bacteria don't survive at this temperature,and why we keep food in a fridge) but this is a minimum and that sirloin steak u enjoy would normally be only 3 days old but more traditionally beef would be hung for up to four weeks alowing the beef to become much more tender.but i would not try this at home the beef is hung as a whole carcass ,not single cuts,and any spoiled bits of meat are trimmed of.Remember food poisoning can be fatal...

Answer 5

You don't hang the beef the butcher does. After killing the meat it should be hung in cold storage, for the meat to tenderise and the flavour to develop. Always ask your butcher how long he has hung his meat. It really needs 2-3 weeks

Answer 6

After the steer is killed & bled out, it is gutted & skinned. the carcass is then cooled & aged 10 to 14 days in a cooler while it hangs from rolling hooks. After the aging, the carcass is cut & wrapped....
Aged beef IS better.... When we have a steer butchered every year, our butcher hangs the carcass for at least 10 - 14 days....

Answer 7

I think you are refering to dry aged beef.. I have seen it in stores on hooks in a refregerator of some type. They let the meat rot a little hook and after a while they take it down and cut off the rotten parts off and sell it ( something like that ) . Sounds kind of gross but that is what I understand it is. The tissue is alowed to breakdown and gives it a good taste. I would not try to do this at home because if you do not know how to do it you could get sick or worse. Let the pros do it for you .

Answer 8

its hung from hooks in a cooler to "age". the beef you buy in stores is already quite old, so hanging 10 days may not be practicle, plus resturants get beef thats not available to the general public.

Answer 9

it is beef that has been pickled/cured in brine. it is an Irish forte, in a number of of situations served with cabbage. it is amazingly solid and my kinfolk has it each and every St. Patrick's day. (Oh yeah and for the record "anyhow" isn't a be conscious. %. up the dictionary, is it in there?)

Answer 10

Loose boxers !