Dry-aged beef is a thing of beauty. If a cut of meat is stored in the right environment, time and chemistry will eventually make it more delicious than it was originally. Over the course of a week or two, the enzymes inside of the meat will slowly begin to break down the tough connective tissues between muscle fibers, and excess moisture will gradually dissipate. The end result is a steak that’s more tender and flavorful.
It used to be that this process required restaurant-grade equipment to pull off, but thanks to a recently-launched Kickstarter campaign, you might soon be able to prepare delicious dry-aged beef in the comfort of your own home.
The SteakLocker is essentially a scaled-down version of the professional climate-controlled meat lockers you’d find in an upscale steakhouse — but it’s also a bit more high-tech. Using an array of sensors that communicate with your smartphone or tablet, the locker allows you to remotely monitor and adjust the temperature and humidity of the cabinet from anywhere in the world, and helps you fine-tune your settings to achieve the right flavor profile.
The accompanying mobile app functions like something of a baby monitor for your beef, so you’ll always know whats going on and get instantaneous notifications in the event that anything goes wrong. And as an added bonus, the locker is also equipped with a UV lamp that flicks on periodically to ensure that your raw meat doesn’t become a breeding ground for bacteria.
Normally, full-size restaurant-grade meat lockers like this cost thousands –often tens of thousands– of dollars. But for this smaller (and smarter) version, the SteakLocker team is only asking for a pledge of just $555. According to the company’s Kickstarter page, all of the technical design elements been worked out already, so now all they need is a few grand to start volume production. Find out more here.