What is commonly purchased at grocery store butcher counters—wet-aged beef—doesn’t make for concentrated flavors (there’s no evaporation), nor the tenderizing of the meat’s musculature, nor any development of umami.

Only dry-aging can do that.

This past weekend I was fortunate to be presented with an opportunity to visit a hog farm in Iowa that uses the Niman Ranch methods I also got to attend the yearly Hog Farmer Awards dinner and ceremony. I was eager to see the practices being put into play and, quite honestly, to see if the hype was real or if it’s all just a great story.