First attempt at biltong

[lav25]

So when I decided to make jerky the other week, I saw a recipe for South African biltong here and decided to give that a shot. Big blocks of meat are hard to find around here, but my local restaurant supply store had tri-tip at what passes for a reasonable price in Japan, so I grabbed a couple kilos.

The meat has been sliced into 1cm strips and is currently marinating in vinegar. Quite a bit of vinegar, actually, but what I did was to look up a whole bunch of recipes and choose the ones that seemed to err on the side of food safety. Various recipes called for "brown" vinegar, red wine vinegar, distilled white vinegar, or apple cider vinegar, but since the common thread was vinegar, I used what's cheapest and easiest to find locally: White wine vinegar. Some recipes called for a sprinkling of vinegar, but others said well-soaked, so I erred on the side of caution there too.

Biltong spice isn't a supermarket item here, but I toasted up equal portions of coriander seeds and black peppercorns and crushed them up in my mortar and pestle, then mixed in an equal (equal to the starting volume) of coarse grained sea-salt.

The most cautious recipe I read called for 4 hours in the vinegar, followed by overnight in the coriander/pepper/salt dry rub. Caution rules the day.

Tomorrow I'll be hanging the meat out to dry. I've got two options, and I may split meat for testing purposes.

Option 1 is a Coleman net dryer, with the center layer cut out. I'll hang the meat using paper clips from the top layer, put some newspaper in the bottom to keep my floor clean, and hang everything up. I'll probably have to do this on the balcony, Mrs. LAV may not approve of it in the kitchen. Problem is, the net will keep the birds and bugs off, but it'll be exposed to direct sunlight in the afternoon, and I don't know if that's okay.

Option 2 is hanging it inside my MES 30 with the heat turned off. Take out the chip loader, tape some mosquito net over that hole and the vent (wide open) and maybe point a fan at one of them. This seems like it should work, I don't see any real difference between that and a cardboard box, which I'm fresh out of.

Anyway, Q-View as events warrant, thanks for looking and if you have any tips, please let me know.

 

[JohnsMyName]

Looks good lav! I think the vinegar is only needed as a rinse, it kills bacteria on exterior, and adds a touch of flavor. I’m also told it helps preserve color of meat, but have no science behind this being true or not. I wouldn’t go longer than a rinse or it could stiffen up proteins and change texture of jerky.

Putting it in smoker with vent open sounds best to me. What are your ambient temps and humidity there? This would be my biggest concern.

For seasoning, something like a finished salt content of 4.5% is considered shelf stable. If you weigh the salt and dry to a predetermined weight loss you can pretty accurately guess that. Something like 3% by starting weight of meat is a standard salting amount.

Here’s a link to a recipe post for Coppiette I did. It’s essentially the same thing, but Italian spices and with pork.

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/coppiette.273824/#post-1811420

One other note, beef fat has a tendency to go rancid in cured products, so trim the meat very well before starting.

Keep us updated and post some pics!

Cheers,

John

 

[lav25]

Looks good lav! I think the vinegar is only needed as a rinse, it kills bacteria on exterior, and adds a touch of flavor. I’m also told it helps preserve color of meat, but have no science behind this being true or not. I wouldn’t go longer than a rinse or it could stiffen up proteins and change texture of jerky.

Putting it in smoker with vent open sounds best to me. What are your ambient temps and humidity there? This would be my biggest concern.

For seasoning, something like a finished salt content of 4.5% is considered shelf stable. If you weigh the salt and dry to a predetermined weight loss you can pretty accurately guess that. Something like 3% by starting weight of meat is a standard salting amount.

Here’s a link to a recipe post for Coppiette I did. It’s essentially the same thing, but Italian spices and with pork.

https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/coppiette.273824/#post-1811420

One other note, beef fat has a tendency to go rancid in cured products, so trim the meat very well before starting.

Keep us updated and post some pics!

Cheers,

John

Thanks for the tips John! I'm already started on this round, so if it doesn't work out, next time around I'll take a close look at your recipe. I've been doing some more research overnight while things cure (or whatever the proper term is) and I think I'm going to go with a bit of a cheat. I can set the MES to 100F, which is just above the recommended high temp for pure air-drying (95F) and do things that way. Sort of half-oven, half natural style, shouldn't be a problem, and once I see the results, I can adjust from there.

 

[JohnsMyName]

Sounds like a plan lav. May I suggest pulling a couple of strips to plain air dry in a cool dark place? Even refrigerator will work. It may give you double the insights for little to no extra effort.

What are the ambient temp and humidity in Japan?

 

[lav25]

Current humidity is 54%, been running in the high 40% to low 60% lately, no forecast for rain so that should be pretty steady, and the temps for this week are highs in the low 70s F, dropping to around 50 overnight.

I wish I had space to hang some in my fridge, I really do, but it's a pretty small unit, and all full of oddball condiments like in Fight Club :)

Was going to post some pics, but photobucket is misbehaving, will be back later.

 

[lav25]

Okay, different browser. Here's how the pros don't it:

Sorry for the hot pink tape, it was leftover from a Halloween costume project. 1.5kg (~3 lbs) of marinated and dry-rubbed beef hung on the recommended bent paperclips, ready to hang:

And all hung up from the top shelf, with plenty of room for the Holy Spirit to ward off mold:

I plan to check on things at about 6 hours, although I had a peek after an hour and a half and they sure were sweaty. To reiterate: I'm not using any smoke (barring whatever flavor might come off the walls), and I've only got the heater set to 100 F (lowest setting) to help push things along just a bit. We shall see, more later.

 

[lav25]

All done! Got home late last night, the biltong had been in the smoker (no smoke) for about 11 hours at 100F, with the fan blowing in the chip loader hole and the vent wide open. It looked like this:



but when I cut it, it was still pretty wet inside:


so I went to bed.

This morning, I waited til about the 23 hour mark and pulled one of the thickest pieces out for another test:





I think that's about where I want it, so I pulled the rest of it out:



It bends but doesn't break. Unfortunately, I discovered yesterday that my cheap kitchen scale gave up the ghost, so I've got no idea how much weight it lost. However, this is a preservation technique that Dutch pioneers lifted from local Africans hundreds of years ago, it can't be that easy to screw up. I've eaten one piece (the thick one) and I'll monitor myself for, oh, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, blindness, that sort of thing, but I don't expect any problems.

Thanks for looking!

-val

 

[JohnsMyName]

Thanks for the update Val. If the outside dries too quickly it can lock moisture in. With the heat and fan I would think it would dry thoroughly though. How's the flavor and texture? Is it still wet inside?

 

[daveomak]

Try hanging a few of the strips to dry further and see if the drier texture would be satisfactory...

 

[lav25]

Thanks for the update Val. If the outside dries too quickly it can lock moisture in. With the heat and fan I would think it would dry thoroughly though. How's the flavor and texture? Is it still wet inside?

The flavor is good, a bit salty but not too bad. My wife, who has mixed reactions to my smoking adventures, loved the stuff. We had a picnic yesterday, I cut up a few strips to bring along, and before I knew it, they were gone. Bartender friend of mine says I should go into business. Now, they're biased, and none of us has ever had real biltong before, but I'd say it was a success. I guess as far as texture and taste, it's somewhat similar to those "Jack Links Kippered Beef" things they sell in the convenient stores. I think next time I may cut it a trifle thicker and/or dry it a trifle less for a little bit more moisture in the finished product. I'm also going to start messing around with the spices, now that I understand the technique.

I'm thinking Szechuan peppercorns next time :)

Try hanging a few of the strips to dry further and see if the drier texture would be satisfactory...

I could run some even dryer, but I'm pretty happy with what I got, and it's not going to last long, I can tell.

 

[JohnsMyName]

Nice lav, glad to hear it was a success.

I've done cured duck breast that was rinsed with tawny port and then dusted with 50/50 black and szechuan peppercorn. It came out amazing.

I'd be careful trying for a "moister" finished product. The lack of moisture is what keeps bacteria from growing.