Properly dry-aging a cut of steak at home is a science. Not only does simply sticking it in a standard fridge risk drying out the exterior too quickly but it also prevents any extra moisture from escaping. Enter the Beef Box, an everyday at-home solution for those interested in cooking quality cuts of meat at home as opposed to spending an arm and a leg at a premium steakhouse.
Armed with the ability to perfectly dry-age steak in any kind of refrigerator — as well as a blunt yet slightly comical name — the Beef Box took to Kickstarter this week to bring its dry-aged goodness to the crowdfunding masses.
Officially launched by a Chicago-based company named Geomen, the team behind the innovative Beef Box are a group of engineers, designers, at-home cooks and, of course, big fans of steak. Looking to tackle the typically exorbitant price of eating a quality steak at a restaurant, Geomen designed the box-based device to give people an easy way to make such steaks from the comfort of their own kitchen.
Be it a rib eye, filet mignon, or New York strip steak, the Beef Box was designed to perfectly age literally any cut of meat by controlling humidity, regulating the box’s temperature, and optimizing airflow all on its own. New owners simply plug in the Beef Box and it immediately goes to work.
“Geomen was founded on the principle of design and engineering, working to produce a quality product at a reasonable price,” said company co-founder Jeff George. “Looking for similar products on the market, we realized there isn’t anything cost-effective or easy to use. We decided to create the Beef Box, the first affordable, reusable container that allows steak lovers to age beef in the convenience of their own home.”
For “super” early-bird adopters, Geomen is offering the Beef Box at just $80 (and $100 for regular early-bird adopters), which represents a $40 discount off the expected $120 retail price — should the box get funded, of course. To give the potential backers even more incentive, the team breaks down just how much money one might save utilizing the Beef Box instead of buying steak at a restaurant.
For instance, anyone who purchases a $10.99/lb. cut of steak can effectively turn it into an $18/lb. cut in just 30 days. Multiply those savings over several pounds of meat and it’s easy to see how quickly cash typically spent on a quality steak can instead be put toward other purchases, such as more chimichurri sauce, perhaps.
As of this writing, the Beef Box had raised just shy of $5,000 toward an overall funding goal of $35,000 with 22 days left in the campaign.
