Commercial Dry Ageing Refrigerators and Meat Chillers

Commercial Dry Ageing and Meat Cold Storage

Commercial dry ageing requires more than basic refrigeration. The storage environment needs to support consistent temperature, controlled humidity and suitable airflow throughout the ageing period, while also providing the capacity and product handling required for day-to-day meat processing operations.

Dry Ageing Cold Rooms

A commercial dry ageing cold room provides a controlled environment for ageing larger quantities of meat over extended periods. The required specification will depend on the product, ageing process, target conditions and throughput.

Coolworld can configure cold storage around factors including:

• required temperature range
• relative humidity requirements
• airflow and air circulation
• hanging meat capacity
• meat rail configuration
• monitoring and data logging
• available site space
• access and product movement

Hanging Meat and Carcass Chilling

Where the requirement is primarily for carcass chilling or hanging meat storage rather than maturation, the refrigeration system can be configured around rapid temperature reduction, stable chilled storage and efficient product handling.

Meat rail cold stores allow carcasses and other hanging products to be stored without occupying floor space with conventional shelving or pallet systems. This makes them suitable for meat processing, butchery, wholesale and food production environments where hanging storage is operationally important.

Commercial Systems for Higher-Capacity Applications

Coolworld solutions are designed for commercial and industrial applications where a standard dry ageing cabinet may not provide sufficient capacity, flexibility or integration with existing processing operations.

Systems can be supplied for hire, lease or purchase and configured around the required storage capacity, site conditions and meat processing workflow.

Dry ageing versus carcass chilling

Dry ageing is a controlled maturation process that combines refrigerated temperature, relative humidity, airflow and time to change the flavour and tenderness of meat. Carcass chilling has a different objective: to reduce and maintain product temperature safely after processing. The two processes use similar refrigerated infrastructure but different process settings, so it is worth establishing which one you are specifying for before selecting a unit.

Environmental controls for dry ageing

Commercial dry ageing requires more than a temperature set point. Temperature, relative humidity and airflow must be managed together to control moisture loss and product condition over the ageing period. Our guide to commercial dry-ageing temperature and humidity discusses process temperatures of around 0°C to 4°C and relative humidity of 75–80%.

Those figures describe the dry-ageing process itself rather than the controllable range of any particular unit. The controls, sensors and monitoring supplied with a given configuration are confirmed by the Coolworld engineering team during specification.

Hanging capacity and configuration

The 40ft meat rail portable cold store configuration is provided with 252 hooks and a capacity of up to 6,048kg of product, with a stated operating temperature range of -40°C to +10°C. Hanging layout, loading pattern and access are configured around the product and the site, so the applicable capacity for your process is confirmed before supply. Full details of the rail system are on the meat rail cold stores page.

Hygiene and food safety

Units are supplied to support HACCP-compliant operation for meat storage. See our HACCP cold storage guidance for how temperature-controlled storage fits into a food safety plan. The cleaning regime, internal finish and drainage arrangements that apply to a specific unit are confirmed as part of the specification.

Hire, lease or purchase

Meat chilling and hanging meat storage are available to hire, lease or purchase, with new and refurbished equipment available and pricing for hire periods of six months and up. Availability depends on the configuration required, so the commercial model is confirmed during specification.