tekobo

@jeffshoaf that looks good. I took a quick look round the options online and there seem to be many more at an affordable price than when I bought mine. Worth taking a look at the features on the one I ended up with to see if any of the features are worth seeking out in your current choice or another option. I started off with a cheap wine fridge but moved up to this as a more reliable and safer option. The funny thing is that now that I have one, I know that I would like another to run at different humidity and temp settings for salami making. No-one needs two dry agers in their life so I am using our enclosed porch to age a proscuitto and a cool basement room to age salamis. Wow, I just looked up a US site for my German made dry ager. The US price is off the charts. That's funny. We usually find that you get stuff much cheaper than us in the US. Nice that it is the other way round this time. Here is the link so you can see the features https://www.dryagerusa.com/products/dry-aging-fridge-ux-500 @Basher answers to your questions: Are you melting animal fat then painting it on as it cools? Yes, it is a bit tricky to get the right balance. I only just melt the fat and I apply it to cold meat to avoid heating up the meat too much in the process. Is there a preferred fat to encase your meat? I use dairy cow fat simply because I have some from mincing and then melting down the lovely fat that came from the dairy cow meat that I bought a while ago. I froze the fat in blocks and defrost one when I need it. Also, all our poultry here has to pass through a mild chlorine/ bleach wash to stop salmonella here, and then rinsed. We rarely ever get salmonella sickness as a result and you can’t smell any traces of the wash. Is it the same in the UK? I started off by trying to find out what happens to chickens in the UK to prevent salmonella but gave up when I couldn't find anything quickly. In any case, I figured the question that you were really asking me is whether I think it is safe to dry age chicken. The answer is that some sites tell you that you will die, instantly, if you dry age chicken and eat it. Others are more relaxed. I can only rely on my and my various mentors' (suppliers and restauranteurs) experience. Using good kit with the right temps and safety features and maintaining good hygiene practice means that I have not had any issues to date.

Tease! I have my asthma and diabetes under excellent control but I am hoping my diagnoses will help me get vaccinated sooner rather than later. We may be visiting you sooner than you think!!!

Hi @jeffshoaf. The best thing that I can say about dry aging at home is that it has become routine and exciting at the same time. This photo illustrates my point: The cote de boeuf at the top went in last week Monday. No fuss, just sitting there and we will probably have it with chips this Friday night. I asked The Husband to pick up a chicken from the supermarket today, something that we almost never do apart from to mince up for our cats. I want to see how/if aging will make a supermarket chicken worth eating. We will probably eat it sometime next week. And at the bottom is the three rib sirloin joint that I coated in fat at either end and started to age in September. Smells just fine and there is no sign of any sort of mould because of the fat painted on either end. So. On to your questions about whether to age small pieces or not. I was unsure about how best to use my dry ager until I visited a great restaurant in Wales last year. They kindly let us see their aging operation and these are the notes that I made afterwards: Mackerel - guts out cut flat underside. 7-10 days. Duck crown - ideal 10 days absolute max 3 weeks Fat encased joints - 8 months and more Chicken - max ten days Lamb fat trim - 6 months before making butter Tuna - 5-10 days Turbot (big) -10 days Their confidence about these timescales and the book "The Whole Fish" gave me more confidence about using the dry ager to a) improve tenderness and flavour and b) improve the dryness and crispiness of skin with a whole range of meats and fish. I was starting to lose confidence in my plan to age the three rib sirloin joint for 200 days, ala Lennox Hastie. Last week I dropped at note to my mentor at the Welsh restaurant and he came back to say he had gone up to 300 days but would advise I stop now unless I want a really "cheesy" taste. I like the blue cheese flavour so I will likely wait until my birthday in late Feb to break it out of the fat. You never know, we might be allowed to meet people by then. We have many friends who love to experiment with us. I hope you do too. It will be lots of fun.

@RokDok, I realise I was in a Bolshie mood this morning. As always, your story was fun. We spent a few years butchering our own meat the Hugh's "Pig in a Day" DVD was our handy guide when we came to butcher pigs. I am pretty certain Ray would have been the butcher in that video. One of us always had to have a clean hand free to press play and pause as we arrived at the next bit of the pig where we required assistance and instruction.

I am such a copy cat. This is @Troble's original: Here is my copy, using beef and suya spices: I was desperate to try this and, following @BOC's advice about how to make a Trombo King of my own, I hunted around in my cake tin box and presented The Husband with this, an hour before it needed to go on the grill. Make me one of those please I said. He drilled a hole through the middle and "secured" the skewer with a plate he found in his workshop. Here it is loaded up Lessons learned? Cook low and slow initially to avoid too much fat rendering and collecting in the base, cut the skewer so that it fits within the KK without tilting and ... do it again. Soon.

Unusually @RokDok, I am going to disagree with you. If the definition of provenance is that you know where your food has come from then I don't think that makes much difference to the taste of the meat, which is what I was thinking of when I posted above. At the very least I know the name of the supplier of the meat that I buy but I often know the farmer, I have sometimes met the animal and I usually know when it is to be killed and how long it will be hung. That knowledge makes me feel connected and responsible for my meat eating but my ranking of what impacts the taste is: 1. Breed of animal 2. How long it has been aged/hung 3. How it was raised and what it was fed (and this could be what you mean by provenance but I don't know that that is in the strict definition of the word) Which brings me neatly back to @Troble's original question. Is it worth trying Wagyu beef and does it matter where it was raised - US or Japan? The biggest difference will of course be the fact that he will be eating Wagyu. The things that will set the Japanese Kobe version apart will be items 2 and 3 on the list. For me they are in that order, for a Japanese person who knows their Kobe, 3 may come ahead of 2.

This was our Conference championship meal. Crazy delicious. The recipes were from the Pitt Cue Co book. Found a copy for the chicken online here: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/07/whole-spicy-smoked-roast-chicken-from-pitt-cue.html I originally thought I should have cooked the chicken directly on the grate but I did as I was told in the recipe and cooked it in a pan. So glad that I did. These juices and sticky stuff were delicious! The anticipation was off the scale when we cut it up And we paired the chicken with a real flavour hit from the Pitt Cue Co book: pumpkin home fries with Nduja mayonnaise. Picture not pretty but so, so tasty.

I've eaten wagyu in Japan and really enjoyed it but have no desire to hunt it down and eat it again. The thing I have found with meat is that the breed and how the meat has been hung and aged makes so much difference. If I were you I would try wagyu once and then move on. Explore what's available from specialised farms and butchers. There so much to learn and enjoy.

Hey Tony. I sometimes struggle with halloumi sticking to the grates. Seems to need high heat AND needs some oiling. Is that your experience?

You jest @Tyrus but I did actually ask a poultry supplier for chicken blood once. Not for me mind, but for my father-in-law who wanted to make coq au vin. They never responded to my email. I waited a couple of years before I approached them again and made no mention of blood ever again. They answer all my emails now. The lesson? Don't scare folk with weird s**t on your first encounter. Save it for the second or third.

Hi @John T. Having never cooked duck breast this way before I wasn't prepared for the amount of fat that was rendered into the pan. I already had sides and sauce fixed for that day and so I did not take advantage of the lovely fat that came off the duck. Thanks for the tips. Next time! I worked in Yorkshire for about 13 years, flying up every week. Even the mention of Yorkshire makes me nostalgic. Different world now though. Less zooming and more Zooming. Mark and I sat smugly on our (now not so) new sofa and laughed at your description of life in the RD household. I have to say that I am pleased that he spends very little time on this forum. I dread to think how he would describe life in our house. Today I came home at about 1:30pm having been out running errands, filling up the hot compost bin on our allotment being one of them, to find him sharpening the Nth knife of the day. I gently told him he was in charge of fixing lunch today. I am not sure if his description of that event would be the same as mine.

I try to avoid commenting on individual cooks in this thread because it seems like you are disregarding the other cooks that have been posted. All lovely cooks since this morning but I have to say...I adore the look of those giant pork chops @jonj! Happy Straya day when it comes @Basher. Thanks for the reminder, it is also a Sydney friend's birthday so I shall get on the blower on Tues.

Thank you all. Thought I would share something I should have discovered way sooner than I did. Hey @Braai-Q, you should have told me before now!!! Yes, I dry age the duck breasts for about a week before cooking. The flesh side looks scarily like leather by the end of the process but it comes out great when cooked. The best bit about dry aging is the skin. It is lovely and dry and that makes it easy to make the fine hatching which helps render the fat. @RokDok, the idea of doing duck legs this way has potential but given the leg has less fat you may not get the benefit of the melting fat helping with the cook. Maybe add a bit of duck fat to the pan at the start. Certainly interested to see how you get on if you try it. I am pretty boring with duck legs. I generally confit them sous vide. It means I can keep them in the fridge for a while vacuum packed in fat. Great for a weekday evening meal. Cut bag, place duck leg in pan to crisp up skin and eat with lentils or some other satisfying side.

Here are a few dancing girls to keep the rain away. Have fun. Try to get some pics!

Simple proof of the value of a sharp knife. The Husband is responsible for fish prep round here and he and I were delighted with how cleanly this fillet of brill came off yesterday. O

My husband, also known as @Sharky, is in the middle learning his way around this piece of kit as I type. The whetstones are sitting in a bowl of water and he also moistens the whetstone that is in use at intervals. I read your post out to him @Syzygies. He has some thoughts and says he will post later. I think he is having too much fun to stop now. I started this journey because @5698k's post about the TSPROF was the next one up when I logged back on to the forum that day. It caught my imagination and I passed the details on to The Husband who dived head first into the rabbit hole. It also helped that @Braai-Q said he had been considering TSPROF as his next choice. Choices. We looked at the cheaper Blitz model first. It had some limitations but was initially The Husband's preferred choice. When he provided a position report I really liked the idea of being able to sharpen other tools, using an adaptor, on the K03. He totted up the cost of buying the specific options that we wanted and found a) that it was quite high and b) that a number of the options were not immediately available. We had originally laughed at the sales blurb that read: "Cannot choose between all TSPROF K03 sharpening systems, but still looking for the best expansions, sharpening stones and accessories? If so the K03 Expert Complete Kit is the best choice for you!" Ridiculous! We thought. The fact is, the complete kit wasn't much more expensive than assembling the options that we wanted and all the parts we wanted were available as part of the complete kit. So we bought it from these guys in the Netherlands: https://www.knivesandtools.co.uk/en/pt/-tsprof-k03-expert-complete-kit-sharpening-system-ts-k03200410.htm Yes, Mark did hear about the Kadet but it not available yet and we were happy with our choice. As I said to @Braai-Q yesterday, our problem is that we have no adult supervision in our house. All good.

Our food discovery of 2020 was just how much we like duck breast. While I was KK-less over the summer I found that cooking duck breast over my Solo Bonfire stove worked very well. There was limited smoke and what smoke there was stayed outdoors. The fat collecting channel also felt like a great innovation. It was so good that I thought this would be my go to method for all time. Then my 16" KK arrived and I tried the duck breast out in there with good results. This week I thought I would look up alternative recipes for duck breasts and, alongside a great recipe for blueberry mostarda, I found a great method for cooking duck breasts. It was in the book "Root to Leaf" https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0062283693/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_bi-cGbYZTK42X. Super simple. Put your duck breast skin side down in a cold pan. Cook on a medium-low heat for about 12-14 minutes, I did 15. Then turn over and cook flesh side down in the rendered fat for 2 minutes, I did 3. Rest for 5 minutes. So simple. No smoke. Indoors and warm. Done. My new go to method.

I am very pleased to have benefitted from your collective experience on this thread. After a couple of days of research and debate here we dived in and bought the TSPROF K03 sharpening system. The constraints on length of blade with the cheaper options and the fact that this system can also be used to sharpen our secateurs, chisels and my sewing scissors clinched it for us. The kit arrived in a neat box yesterday and The Husband got it out to use immediately. My crude assessment is that "all" that this does is a) helps you to choose the angle at which you will sharpen your knife and b) locks your knife into position so that you are able to apply the whetsone across your blade at that consistent angle. I think this means that you don't develop the skill and feel required to sharpen a knife by hand on a whetstone without any assistance but it does free you up to focus on your knife, the specific results you want and how to achieve them with the various stones and angles available to you. The Husband practised on an old Kasumi knife that we had consigned to our knife drawer in the basement. It came out beautifully. I used it to cut up a pile of post juicing orange shells for the compost heap. The ease with which the blade glided through the rubbery skin and thick shells was just amazing. Very little pressure. It made me realise how much effort I had previously been using to cut things up in the kitchen, even with my regular use of the steel. Do we really need this piece of kit? Probably not. We could have achieved something that was close enough if we had only used the whetstones that we already had more often. Am I pleased that we bought this piece of kit? Absolutely. The absence of effort when it came to cutting stuff up felt life changing. Not planning to buy any new knives here. Will be looking to get to know the ones that we have better. And yes, I am scared of my now very sharp knife. I need to relearn how to handle it in use and when washing. Super happy.

Yes! The information that is available is just amazing isn't it? Good to manage your expectations with four weeks of contingency but I know that in your heart of hearts you are hoping your KK will make it to you in less time. Me too! Looking forward to seeing that gorgeous vibrant blue KK in situ.

Yay! Thanks @Jon B.!

Tee hee. I feel like an interloper in this knife conversation but I have returned for a few reasons: 1. To thank @troble for starting this thread 2. To say that I woke up especially happy this morning. For a few years I have been dogmatic about using my two go-to knives and nothing else. It was great to be free of clutter but now I have decided that I will go into our knife store and pick out one to be a guest knife each month. We have some we bought in Japan and some that we bought direct from a knife maker in India. It will be fun to discover their various characteristics. 3. To say that we will get a knife sharpener but I don't yet know which. White smoke pending. The Husband seems to trust the You Tube guy that he found. Apparently he is a Green Bay fan like my husband. It takes all sorts.

Awesome. When you send your son over the seas to the UK when all of this COVID stuff is over, we would be very happy to have him stay and practice his skills on us!

Please give Tony a hug from me!

The Husband did say that the guy was going on to talk about blade length. I can hear the background noise from the video in the next room. Seems like he is getting drawn in. Knowing him, there will be a few days of circling round alternatives but I think we will be getting a decent knife sharpening system. Thanks for the tip.

I don't think I would have been able to let those ribs go @Tyrus. You are a better man than me. Just as well, me not being a man n'all.