I knew for years about dry aging but never really needed it till now. I have lots of vacuum sealed venison in my freezer from deer and moose. Some of the cuts are on the tougher side. I have used the Sous Vide method of using a water bath to cook the internal wild game temperature to medium rare and that works but does not tenderize or change the flavor of my meat.
I am a big fan of the Internet and You Tube to see what others are doing in the kitchen with venison. Personally I like the idea of short dry age times. I tested my theory and it works for me.
I thawed a piece of moose rump steak after much research and placed it on a non-reactive rack in my fridge and set the actual fridge temp to 38F. Three days later I had meat that was very tender with minimal meat loss. Flavor was excellent and I didn’t trim much. Now the Sous Vide will do an even better job on a tender, flavorful cut.
Key to aging is getting the actual temperature inside correct.
Aficionado’s, say that 34 to 39 degrees is the window of temperature that is ideal for connective tissue and enzymes in the meat to tenderize yet minimize bacterial growth. I do not have a spare fridge so I experimented in my new large kitchen fridge. I was able to easily set and verify the temperature.
There are many methods and time lengths that one could use, however, I wanted to minimize the loss of meat and almost no meat was cut away using this 3 day method.
Another method I will try is using special dry age freezer bags that allow evaporation in the fridge for larger cuts below.
Update
It took a month to get my dry age vacuum seal bags from Europe. Beginning tonight, 1/8/2021, I will dry age 2 moose steaks and one venison cut of backstrap in those dry age bags for at least 20 days maybe more. See photo below of my vacuum sealed bags that allow air to pass out only. I am dry aging two Moose Rump steaks and one 5 inch cut of Whitetail back strap. It takes three days for the plastic to adhere to the meat says the instructions. I will follow up this article in 20 days.
If you vacuum seal meat and freeze as I do, then, I am told, you are Wet Aging your meat and to some degree freezer meat that has been vacuum sealed, improves in flavor (degassing) but does not tenderize or break down the connective tissue.
Hope this article helps you eat all that great wild game and go get some more.
Good Hunting!