How to treat an old dairy cow like a prize

While 210 was being prepared, the film had an adviser in Sweden, a charcuterie maker who worked at Undersåkers Charkuterifabrik, started by Magnus Nilsson and chefs from Fäviken, the restaurant that closed in 2019. The charcuterie bought a lot of older dairy cow for sausages, salami, smoking and aged steaks. Fäviken forwarded Digby’s first email to him, and he answered every question that followed: choosing and resting the cow, the journey, the butchery, the ageing, the bresaola and the cooking. This is his advice, in our words except where he is quoted.¹

Choose an older, grass-fed cow

At the charcuterie they preferred older dairy cows, 72 months and older, raised mainly on grass. 210 fitted: she was about 150 months old, organic and mainly grass-fed.

Before slaughter: fresh grass and a calm journey

Give her a spell on fresh pasture first. Fresh grass brings omega-3 into the fat, which makes it tastier and juicier. A calm, unstressed animal matters for the quality of the meat, and a calm journey matters more than the time of day. In his experience, cattle cope with transport better than pigs.

Butchery: use the whole animal

He thinks in four piles: bones for stock; mince, lean and fatty; pieces for smoking, air-drying and selling fresh; and meat on the bone for ageing. Then, cut by cut:

• Top blade: sell it fresh. The rest of the shoulder goes to mince, which is great for salami.
• Chuck roll: burgers, mixed with 20% cold-smoked bacon, or grill the heart of the chuck roll like an entrecôte.
• Brisket: smoke it and braise it, or use it as fatty mince for sausages.
• Inner thigh (the round): bresaola, tartare or fresh.
• Outer thigh: smoking.
• Flap, flank, hanger and skirt: the barbecue.
• Rump: a Sunday roast.
• Heart for smoking, tongue for boiling, tail for soup.

“We used pretty much all,” he wrote.

Dry-ageing: on the bone, under butter

The best results came from entrecôte and sirloin on the bone (in the UK, read the note on bone-in cuts at the end). Trim them to clean cuts and let them dry in the fridge for about 5–7 days. Then cover the meaty parts in soft salted butter: it stops them drying out too much and keeps unwanted mould off.

Use a dedicated ageing cabinet, or an old fridge with nothing else in it, at about 4–5 °C and 40–50% humidity. Lay the meat on a grid, never on hooks: hanging tears the muscle fibres and lets mould in. Turn it a couple of times early on.

How long? For dairy cow, he thinks 10–12 weeks is enough. Go much longer and it starts to taste more of sour cream and cheese than of beef, though some people like that. His best: “a sirloin on the bone from an 8-year-old dairy cow, aged 16 weeks… one of the best meat I’ve eaten.”

Charcuterie and bresaola

Meat for charcuterie only needs to hang for about 5 days. For bresaola, take the round (the inner thigh) and cut it into pieces. Rub them with sea salt and crushed black pepper, taking the amount of salt from a tested bresaola recipe (getting it right matters for safety, so don’t guess), then vacuum-seal and cure for at least 2 weeks. Wash the pieces, put each in a beef bung, tie it tightly and air-dry until it has lost about 32–34% of its weight. Then vacuum-seal it again and let it mature for a couple of months.

One surprise: they found it tasted better without red wine. With wine, “the taste of the beef kind of disappeared.”

Cooking an aged steak

Cut it at least 3 cm thick. Cook it in a frying pan or on a proper grill, in good butter with just salt and pepper, over a high heat, moving it constantly so every surface caramelises. Rest it for at least 15 minutes, then put it back in the pan on a lower heat until it reaches 50 °C inside, and rest it again.

He keeps sous vide for the cuts that need long cooking to become tender. For those, see our recipes.

The honest bit

Our adviser did not pretend any of this is easy: turning it into a business is hard to make work economically. But, as he put it, “it’s rare these days that people are taking care of the product and giving the animal the respect they deserve.” That is what the film is about.

A note on safety and the law in the UK

This is one charcuterie’s practice in Sweden, not professional or legal advice. In the UK, the backbone (vertebral column) of cattle over 30 months old is specified risk material and has to be removed by an approved cutting plant or butcher.² That affects which bone-in cuts you can have from an old dairy cow, including a sirloin aged on the bone as described here. Use a licensed butcher, ask what they can supply, and check current Food Standards Agency guidance. Dry-ageing and curing at home carry real food-safety risks: follow FSA guidance.³

Sources

1. Emails to Digby Oldridge from a charcuterie maker at Undersåkers Charkuterifabrik while 210 was being prepared (paraphrased; quoted lines are his).
2. Food Standards Agency, Guide to removal of vertebral column SRM from primal cuts.
3. Food Standards Agency, food.gov.uk: current guidance on meat, curing and food safety at home.

Last checked 2026-10-25. Spotted an error? Tell us via the press contact.