Old Cow Ribeyes

I work at a small processor. The owner has recently started buying cows that are too old to produce calves any longer, to be used for ground beef. They're slaughtered and within a day or two, we bone them out. So pretty much zero time hanging after the initial chill-down.

I'd never had anything this old before, so I took a small chunk of a ribeye section home. Wet-aged it for a whopping 16 days. Cut three roughly 2" thick steaks, dry-brined, and reverse-seared them.

Honestly for beef having no hang time on them, I was very pleasantly surprised! The flavor was great. It was a little bit tougher, but that's to be expected.

The biggest difference I noticed was in the silverskin/connective tissue. Way more developed in these older animals. Normally the connective tissue between the different muscles on a ribeye is barely noticeable. But it was much more pronounced, and harder to just eat through.

Honestly 10/10 would do again, esp. for how inexpensive it was. Maybe wet-age it longer, but honestly I don't mind a little bit of chew and wet-aging won't do much for the connective tissue. Very interested to see what dry-aging would do for the flavor.