Bill Addison

This column originally appeared online May 18, 2007.

Wet-aged. Dry-aged. These terms, applied to steaks, are frequently bandied about in chophouse parlance. But what do they really mean?

I've been dining in a lot of steakhouses lately, and, frankly, it's a question I've been asking myself. Beyond a perfunctory knowledge of the process, I wasn't sure what actually transpired to finesse the flavor and texture of the pricey, powerhouse slabs of meat served in Dallas' holiest cow palaces.

So, a bit of history:

Twenty-five years ago, dry-aged steaks were standard fare in the country's steakhouses. As with other time-honored luxury vittles, like Parmigiano-Reggiano and prosciutto, aging develops and intensifies the flavor of meat as its moisture content slowly evaporates.

In the age of The Jungle, though, the practices around dry aging could sometimes be squeamishly dubious.

"The way steakhouses used to judge dry-aged meat, they would ask: 'How long is the hair?' " says Todd Hatoff, president of Chicago-based Allen Bros., the country's leading purveyor of USDA prime-grade beef. "Before technology, dry-aging was a slimy process where the cuts of meat would literally grow hair. How long the hair grew determined when you wanted the meat."

Of course, the exterior gore was removed to reveal a supple piece of meat full of the signature nuttiness of dry-aged steak. But still, that all sounds a bit, um, hair-raising.

Enter the age of science and sanitation: Bags of Cryovac, a heavy-duty plastic that traps moisture, are developed for aging meat. Wet-aged steaks are sealed in their own blood for at least three to four weeks; the connective tissue slowly breaks down, yielding tender consistency and a more delicate (some say sweeter), mineral taste.

But the real wet-aging bonus for both meat purveyor and restaurant concerns economics: Not only do the Cryovac bags extend shelf life, they also help the beef retain bulk. The weight lost from wet-aging steaks is only about 3 percent, according to Mr. Hatoff.

Dry-aging, by contrast, results in a 10 percent to 12 percent weight loss. Even though today's dry-aging meat techniques involve a highly hygienic combination of temperature and humidity control, air circulation and ultraviolet lights that kill bad bacteria and promote beneficial ones, the steaks still form a healthily moldy crust that needs to be trimmed off.

Bottom line? Dry-aged steaks are expensive. "They require an investment in space, time, patience and cost," says Mr. Hatoff.

"I'd say 95 percent of the United States now eats wet-aged steaks," states Rick Hamilton, a Dallas-based national rep for Allen Bros. "Dry-aged is mostly a New York thing these days. Dallas is definitely dominated by wet-aged beef."

Yet a taste for the concentrated savor of dry-aged meat has been re-emerging of late. Pappas Bros. and the Capital Grille are two Dallas restaurants that maintain in-house dry-aging programs. According to Mr. Hamilton, many restaurants in the city offer dry-aged steaks as a special or proffer one dry-aged option among the prevalent wet-aged selections.

Al Biernat's menu, for example, lists a 16-ounce wet-aged prime New York strip for $37.95 and a 19-ounce bone-in, dry-aged prime New York strip for $47.95. (Bone-in cuts, like New York strip and cowboy rib eye, work best for dry-aging; filet mignon may become sour and mushy.)

"Dry-aged tends to be for the purist types," says the restaurant's owner, Al Biernat. "They don't want rubs or sauces or sometimes even kosher salt. Personally, I like mine with a little burned garlic on top. Dry-aged is still good, but I actually prefer wet-aged at the moment."

My tastes run in the other direction.

During a recent meal at Mr. Biernat's perpetual hot spot, a colleague and I ordered both New York strips for a side-by-side comparison. Though the textural difference was not acutely pronounced (I've had more densely buttery dry-aged steaks on the East Coast), the flavors clearly illustrated the difference in aging techniques. The clean metallic taste of the wet-aged, though admittedly wonderful, fell to the back of the herd in comparison with the dry-aged, which hummed with the rich, complex overtones of red wine and pecan.

Sure, it's an extravagance, but I'll gladly hoard my shekels for an occasional indulgence so primal and sensual. Color me a purist type.

Thoughts on steaks? E-mail me at billaddison@dallasnews.com.