Forget Jerky - Make Yourself Some Biltong

Forget Jerky - Make Yourself Some Biltong :-) 

From Curious_Aardvark @ www.smokingmeatforums.com

Biltong is a cured meat product revered in south africa as the food of the gods. You can make it in a desiccator or (as I do) in a converted cardboard box :-)  It's main difference to jerky is that you use much larger and thicker pieces of meat and use a vinegar mix to marinade the meat before liberally coating in the curing spice and hanging to dry. You can dry it to different wetnesses. If you dry it totally it will keep almost indefinitely with no special storage requirements. Generally it's cured to a medium dryness so that it's still slightly moist in the centre. I can guarentee that once you've made and tasted biltong you'll never bother making jerky again ;-)

Okay traditional biltong method:

South africans use mostly beef but any red meat will do.  I've used beef, pork (turns out a bit like cured gammon), turkey thigh meat and pigeon breasts. They all have their different flavours - but the pigeon turned out to have a very strong almost gamey flavour and smooth texture.

Cut long strips of meat approx 1/2 to 1 inch thick. You can cut to any length - just so long as it'll hang in your drying box. place meat in bowl and add a decent amount of cider vinegar. Make sure the meat is coated liberally and leave for about 20 minutes to soak.  I also use balsamic vinegars, tabasco, some garlic powder and a little extra sugar in my vinegar mix.

Pour off the excess vinegar and add biltong spice (coriander seeds, brown sugar, black pepper and salt) Coat the meat well in the spice, lump it at the end of bowl (I use a long oblong plastic tray thing) and let any excess fluid drain into the empty part of the bowl. having bowl tilted slightly helps. Pour the liquid off every half hour or so. After 2 -3 hours hang meat to dry.

Either use a purpose made drying box or hang in cool dry insect free place for 3-5 days. I like my biltong very dry and very hard and chewy. .

Biltong is nothing like jerky. It's got a lot more flavour, is much thicker and subsequently a better eating experience. Should not taste overly salty and by dint of the vinegar sterilising, the meat tends to keep at least as long as jerky. You can also add a small amount of saltpetre to the spice mix for added preservation (I don't, but you can).

So here's what it looks like :-)

http://members.aol.com/routeraardvark/slinging/biltong/

If you want to have a go my actual spice mix for about 3 lb of meat = 4 teaspoons sea salt, 2 heaped teaspoons ground black pepper, 4 teaspoons brown sugar, 7 teaspoons coriander seeds, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika and half a teaspoon powdered garlic. I grind the sugar, pepper, salt etc seperately and then grind the coriander (both in mortar and pestle) and then mix them in a small bowl. My mortar is not big enough to do it all at once as coriander is high volume low weight. If you buy ready ground coriander seeds then add 4 teaspoons to the salt, sugar and pepper. If you've got something like a magic bullet processor (it's on my to-buy list) use that.

If anyone's interested in the dimensions of my cardbaord box I'll go measure it. It uses a 20 watt lightbulb. And on average my biltong is ready after 3-4 days.

the link in the original post appears to be dead - here are some written instructions for making a box of your own; according to the original poster it really IS as easy and uncomplicated as it sounds:

To make your own box, just go get a lamp kit from a hardware store and snag a big cardboard box and a roll of duct tape and a couple of coathangers, a handful of paper clips.

The box itself is composed of 3 parts. A base, a lid and the middle 'square tube'. All made of standard grade box cardboard.

Height - 30 inches.
11 inches square.
The base and lid are 2 inches deep and 11 1/4 inches square to fit snugly over the tube.

The heat source consists of a 40 watt bulb mounted in a standard bayonet bulb holder screwed to a piece of mdf. A standard lamp cord passes through a small slit in the base to a switch followed by a plug. In other words it's a standard lamp fitting without a lamp :-)

The 2 hanging rails are thin steel rods. Straightened out coat hangers would do fine - as might bicycle wheel spokes. I've wound masking tape round the ends of the rods that stick out from the box for the obvious reason od stopping them being pushed inside.

The drip tray stands on a randomly folded bit of cardboard so that it's about 3 inches above the height of the bulb. This could be easily improved on - but it works so I haven't bothered :-)

I can 'biltong' about 4 lbs of beef at one go in this little box.

Bear in mind you start with large strips and end up with smallish sticks

Good biltong #is ready when the outside feels hard but you can still feel a little give in the stick. When cut through it should be a uniform dark red shading to black (no nitrites/nitrates needed to do this ;-)

To answer a couple of questions.

1) there is no smell - I keep and run my biltong box in my bedroom. (not strictly true - it smells fabulous :-) Better to say there is no strong or objectionable odour ;-)

Follow my method and recipe and I guarentee it will both be odour free and very few drips make it to the drip tray. Those that do tend to evaporate over the course of the 3-4 days anyway :-)