Very good jerky can be made by laying the strips on the racks in the Kitchen Oven, turn up to 150 to 180 with the door cracked open about two inches and give it 6 to 8 hours...season to your likeing...I like it real hot and spicy

I have a dynamite recipe for jerky. It does not take a drier or oven. I had an old mexican woman teach me how to make carne secca (sp?). I improved her recipe and it comes out good. Anyone that wants it send me an e-mail to the address in my profile and I will e-mail it to you as a jpg file. You can then enlarge it & print it out. The reason I have to send it as a jpg is because it has graphics.

It's very simple to make nice biltong. Don't add fancy stuff otherwise what you get is not South African like biltong.
For 10 kg meat you need 200 - 400 g coarse salt, 20 g Coriander, 10 g crushed black pepper, 100 ml Malt vinegar.
Some important points to remember:
Trim off the outer tissues and ligaments.
Slice the meat ALONG THE GRAIN OF THE MUSCLE into strips app. 20 mm thick.
The thicker the biltong the more salt needed. Don't use too much salt.
Use only the best meat you can get. The best biltong is made from the topside and inside fillets.
Mix coriander, pepper and salt. Cover a clean plastic bath with the mixture. Sprinkle some malt vinegar over it just to moisten it. Add the first layer of meat. Cover it lightly with your mixture and moisten with vinegar. And so on. Cover top of the bath with gauze and leave in a cool place for 12 hours. If lightly salted meat is required then leave standing for 6 hours only.
Remove it from the bath and shake it in order to remove excess salt and moisture. Hang into your biltongmaker. Be careful that the pieces don't touch each other. The longer the meat dries the saltier and less tastier it gets. The inside should be still soft.
Don't make large quantities and think you can store it in you freezer. The quality would deteriorate rapidely, mildew could develop.

www.kapstadt.de/lemberg
Hunting one hour from Cape Town

Update:

I�ve now tasted the thinner strips and the whitetail tastes rancid -it might have been inte the freezer too long. The elk is tasty and it�s easy to tell which is which by the taste! This has happened to mee before with whitetail but not every year. Any ideas on this?

I was surprised to see the best cuts of meat from trophies being used to make biltong. I had always believed it was a way of using less tasty cuts...would these (neck, shoulder) just be too tough to eat?

The whitetail went to the dogs and they loved it. Seems that dear venison doesn�t stay fresh as long as elk when frozen.

The rest of the meat is now going on the third day in the dryer and with all my tasting and testing it looks like I�ll hardly have any left tomorrow!

Time for a new batch.

I assume you mean that it was in the freezer too long prior to making your biltong? Not after. How long has it been in the freezer? Mine will last at least one year no matter what wrapping was used. If double wrapped it will last almost indefinitely in the freezer. After making into jerky it will last a long time. We use more heat and expect it to get done sooner. If left in a warm moist invironment for too long stuff begins to grow. It appears from the previous posts that biltong as a finished product is much moister than what we call jerky. This moisture could negatively affect storage. Can you still eat it if it tastes rancid? You roll your dice and takes your chances. Good hunting. "D"

I have kept biltong in the freezer after my trips to SA but that has never gotten very old -one of the reasons I bought the dryer.

No I meant the raw meat -whitetail doesn�t always seem to stay "fresh" when frozen. It gets a rancid taste and has a vague smell of manure -and I don�t eat it. This never happens with elk and they are packed in identical ways.

The dog seems to enjoy the smelly stuff without any ill effects.

Gentlemen,

I have the best biltong maker available...an Afrikaans fiance who grew up on a farm and has been making it since she was young..!!

Another method for the DIY enthusiasts ... ( Do IT Yourself )

Regards, Peter


For every 25 kg of biltong you make, allow for :

Ingredients Quantity

Good quality fine salt 1,25 kg
Brown sugar 250 ml (1 cup)
Bicarbonate of soda 50 ml (4 tbl)
Saltpeter (optional) 20 ml (4tsp)
Pepper 25ml (2tbl)
Coarsely ground coriander 100 g
Vinegar



NOTE : The sugar keeps the biltong moist and the soda makes the meat tender.

Method of Preparation

After the animal has been skinned , with a sharp knife, cut along the natural dividing lines of the muscles down the length of the whole leg or a large portion of it.

Cut the pieces into strips 5 to 7 cm thick, if possible with some fat on each strip.

Mix the salt, bicarbonate of soda, saltpeter and coriander together. Rub the mixture into the strips of meat.

Layer the meat, larger pieces at the bottom, in a wooden, earthenware, plastic or enamel container � never use iron or metal because the salt may react with it. Sprinkle vinegar over each layer.

Leave in a cool place for 24 to 48 hours, depending on how thick the meat is and how salty you want it to be.

Dip the biltong in a mixture of 500 ml vinegar and 5 litres warm water. This makes it shiny and dark.

Dry the pieces by hanging them on s-shaped hooks of pieces of string, about 5 cm apart, so that the air can circulate freely about them. Leave for 2 to 3 weeks, depending on how tender you would like your meat. Drying machines could also be used.

NOTE :

Do not cut the strips of meat more than 2 cm thick if the weather is not that cool.

Biltong should be dried in a cool, dry, airy place protected from flies and dust.

In humid areas, biltong should be dried in a drying chamber.

To store in humid conditions, freeze biltong and only thaw enough for immediate use.

I love this thread and I love Internet! THIS is real globalism or multiculturalism or whatever you will call it - from the grass-roots but without the leftie and PC bullshit. I sometimes get depressed about all talk about the "Internet revolution" as it in practice often seems to be mostly a development about porn and spam, but then I see something like this and I realize: Geeez, this is a real revolution for real people.

I am reading Ruark's "The old man and the boy" right now. I guess we all think of these tales as the good old days in one way or another but when I can read threads like this one I think we have some very good stuff in our time as well, that they did not - not only in the big but in the small, like how to make biltong in Finland. If it was not for the Internet (and AR) I would probably not even know about Ruark.

Sorry for being OT, but I had to say this.

Regards,
Martin

Yo Peter,
Now about this meat question . . . I have heard that warthog makes terrible biltong. To me, warthog tastes like pork but bushpig, oddly enough, tastes more like beef. Since the most common game meat availble here in SoCal is feral pig would it still be possible to make biltong out of the stringy lil' fellers? This is an especially good question when talking about the boar of the species. The sows I'll just stick in the smoker, BBQ, roasting pan, etc., but the boars are much more strongly flavored and many folk think they are good only for sausage. Personally, I shoot a lot of sows but what is one to do when the "tusks of a lifetime" come along? In a protein-starved world I am unwilling to shoot, decapitate and walk off. What to do with the boar carcase, is the question. Is biltong the answer?

Old Sarge,
Pork needs to be smoked, preferably with Mesquite wood IMO...Pork can be very dangerous to eat dried.

Martin,
I can still remember when my uncle Guy Anderson shoved a paperback copy of "The Old Man and The Boy" into my hands with the admonishment, "Read this!"

A wonderful bunch of stories. After all these years, I still cannot read the last page without tears rolling down my face.

I guess I always thought of my Grandfather and Uncle as the "Old Man"

Ray is right. Not only smoked but heated well through and through. There is potential for trichina worm being present. Not an internal parasite you want. Sausage with plenty of spice may be the answer for your boar meat. Good hunting. "D"

Sarge

How about this Boerewors ( sausage ) from a South African chap in Australia, you can use up some of the pig meat, it sounds bloody great to me, you need a smattering of Afrikaans lingo to understand some of the quips ....

Peter
=======================

Queensland Boerewors


Here is a great recipe for Boerewors by Nico Botha from the far Outback of Australia.

Follow this recipe carefully and you will have mouthwatering boeries!!

I have been living here in Aussie for a few years now. Boerewors is a must for our family as we are addicted to our Heritage.

I would like to share this recipe with all of you and I am sure it will be a winner with a lot of Boertjies around the world!

MY MEAT SELECTION

5 kg rump (lekker cheap here in Far North Queensland)
5 kg mutton (lekker medium vet skaap)
5 kg Pork (no fat)
1.5 gr Bacon shanks - cut and diced into cubes
Mince all the rump, mutton and "varkie" into a grade courser than your normal mince, only once. Mince the bacon cubes.

MY SPICES

100 ml salt (Sea salt)
75 ml of Coriander roasted in the oven.
5-8 ml of cloves
30 ml McCormick Bush Spices (This is an Aussie all purpose spice mix)
12 ml of nutmeg powder
35 ml of Seasoned Black pepper (fine)
Blend coriander, salt, cloves, and Bush spices to a fine spice mixture add Seasoned Black Pepper. Mix well.

MY WET STUFF

625 ml of vintage Balsamic vinegar
2-3 tots of Klipdrift Brandy ! If available, or Napoleon Brandy (The Aussie equvalent to "Klippies"

MY LIFE TREASURE

"Boere geheime"
6x Sweet Over ripe Queensland Tomatoes "soet tamaties"!
4x Large Australian Brown onions.
4x Garlic cloves

Blend the "Boere Geheime" (top secret) into a pulp and add all the spices and wet stuff to the pulp. Mix well and rest the pulp for 20 minutes. If you love green onions, cut 5 of these onions into thin bits, add them to the meat and let it rest!

This is optional !

Now, add the pulp to the meat, mix well and rest the mixture for 30 minutes.
Stick a patty in the pan, taste, smile, have a beer, crack a joke, tell a jagstorie or two, or a fishing story! After all we live in Barramundi country up here!!

Your casings must be well soaked from the night before, wash them well. Do not over stuff skins be gentle!!! Unpack your bit of "Africana", your worsstopper from back home, en laat waai!!

This is a winner braai after braai !

OK Mates, now you have my life secret!!

This is a receipe that will bring tears to your eyes when you and your mates sit in the shed checking the Rugby on the kassie and having a "sluk" of a cold one with a Boerewors roll in the other hand!

Mooi loop!

Nico

Oldsarge,
I have never made biltong with Warthog meat. They do make lovely russians. I also take out the thick pieces of meat next to the backbone and soak them overnight in brine and smoke them the next day. Braai them slowly over a fire and cut it in thin slices, it is really nice. The hind can be stuffed with garlic, and pig fat snd grilled in the oven, it all depends how much fat is on the meat, if it is very fatty, just put salt and pepper on it and slowly roast it in the oven, should be good if eaten either apple jelly or english mustard. jacohu@mweb.co.za SA Hunting Experience

Peter,

Thanks for posting the Boerwors recipe! I'll give it a try this fall with moose meat.

Erik D.

Trichinae - it can be destroyed by thorough heating to 137F or storage at 5F or less for 30 days.Both pork and bear can carry it. Some years ago I did hear of a group that ate dried bear and contracted trichinosis, not a good idea !!...BTW if you are going to smoke meat - smoke first then freeze, not the other way around, to maintain quality....The type of trichinae [Nativa] found in Alaskan bear or walrus will not be killed by freezing !!

The first batch was taken out of the dryer about twenty minutes ago and sliced with a pair of good siccors.

It is now gone, eaten by the kids and me.

After all the tasting there wasn�t much left anyway and best of all the kids said: It tasted just like it did in Africa!

I�m now thawing out some nice pieces of elk, about five kilos of it all I need now is coriander seed and I hope they carry it whole at our market. After that I�ll marinade it over night and hang it in the dryer tomorrow.

Is biltong fattening...

Cewe,

If you can't find whole corriander seeds in your usual market, try an Indian or Pakistani place. They usually have whole corriander. At least here in Norway.

I don't know how you do it, but I brown the seeds in an iron frying pan over medium heat, then grind the seeds in a mortor, and finish by poring the spice thru a sieve to get rid of the biggest husks. I find this brings out the true flavor of the corriander.

Erik D.

ErikD: Your way of brwning corriander seems to be the way to go and that�s what�ll I try. So far I�ve used the spices that came with the machine.

We have quite a few of these ethnic food stores here so I don�t think finding it will be a problem.

Maybe we should start a new forum "Accuratemeatdrying.com"?

Cewe,

Is biltong fattening? Well, that depends on the species. Most game is entirely fat-free, so it isn't really a problem. beef can be a lot more fatty though, but one has to live dangerously sometimes - that fat is DELICIOUS!!!

A good friend and myself stopped off at a butchery in Nylstroom (lately called Modimolle), and placed our standard order - 3kgs of biltong, please - very wet and very fat. The butcher produced several strips of biltong, with a full inch of fat running down the side. He put it on his cutting board and, knife in hand, asked whether he should trim it. My friend, always one for a joke, said "Yeah - trim it, and throw all that black shit away!" One VERY bemused butcher for a moment, before he caught on and put his knife down.

To all: I must say I�m proud of my local grocery store: They had whole corriander seed. I did the roasting and the smell was great! I modified the original recipe, used a bit of brown sugar in the brine etc.

The second batch is now drying, wet weight about 3-4 kg:s.

The fat on biltong is good, the fat around my belly is bad. My dear Dr said I have to lose weight to save my knees from total destruction so I�ll stick to the low fat variety for a while.

Wish it was the 26:th of Febr. cause thats when I migrate South...

Peter's inclusion of Saltpeter is the answer to the "going bad" problem...it's a preservative.

A variation...brown sugar after salt-curing and before hanging. Carries more of the sweetness over to the finished product.

Use opened paper-clips for hanging.

And remember, humidity in RSA in the winter months is very low, that's the secret. There are not many locations in the USA that have that same dry cool weather necessary for natural drying. Most of the country is humid or downright wet in the hunting season. Exceptions are AZ, CA, OR (Eastern), and NM perhaps. That's why the normal practice in the USA involves artificial heat. Also why Jerky is cut or pounded really thin...dries out faster.

Interestingly, some recipes prescribe rock salt, not iodized.

I have found that Blacktail make excellent biltong.

Russ: The salpeter is a sure cure for anything going bad but I�m having a problem with parts of a batch going bad and as far as I can tell it�s always the meat from last years whitetail. The elk is OK and I actually found some whitetail in the back of the freezer from -02 and that was OK.

I did have one whitetail last year that was a "little" gutshot...

Hello! Yesterday I received my biltongdryer from Biltongmakers and the first batch in being prepared. I wonder how many of you have done this at home and if you have any good pointers? I substituted brown vinegar with balsamic vinegar and it smelled right -now I�m keeping my fingers crossed. If this works then it�ll be a great snack for hunting trips.

Cewe,

I've made biltong out of moose a few times, and it's turned out OK, but not what I'd call perfect. Maybe my spices have been wrong... I've used a tall standing dryer that used to be for drying cloths. The mechanics don't work anymore, so I put a lamp in the bottom (for heat) and a small fan (for circulation), this dries out the biltong in about 3 days.
What I have tried which has turned out perfectly (and is even more a favorite of mine and my wifes) is make drywoers. We basically used the same mixture we used to make boerwoers, and dried it for a couple of days. Yummy!
As I've understood, it's best to use tail fat from a sheep. As I couldn't find this here in Norway, we used "speck", pig fat. Supposedly this isn't the best in drywoers because it can go rancid after a while. I don't know how long that's supposed too take, and have my doubts, since most salami etc uses speck. Maybe it's more of a problem in the tropics. Anyway, it was delicious, as was the boerwoers. Send me a PM if you want the recipe we used. It's one we got from some farmers we stayed with in Namibia last year.

Erik D.

Cabelas sells a great food dryer from the Sausage maker. The big one will dry half of a good sized whitetail at a time and all of one of our smaller deer. It makes it into jerkey in about 6-7 hours. The Sausage Maker sells lots of good jerkey spices too. I usually just soak mine in soy sauce with a little red wine in it. After I get the strips of meat on the racks I use pepper/wild game seasoning from mccormick I believe or maybe cajun spice. There are several other variations you can use. Lime juice in the soy gives it a bit of zing. Brown sugar/ garlic/ginger all give their own flavor. experimentation is a very good thing. I never make it the same way twice. Good hunting and eating. "D"

Thanks for the pointers and ideas. The smell is now spreading from the drier (which works with a lamp like yours Erik) and it sure is good. I�ve made strips out of elk and whitaetail as I wanted to test which is better but now the all look the same -oh well. A frind in Sweden makes biltong out of roedeer and he says it excellent.

ErikD: How do you make sausage? I�ve wanted to try that but it seems a bit complicated.

Hello all,

The postings of "biltong" and "droёwors" (both here the correct Afrikaans spelling) in Scandinavia makes me think: I know the word biltong is 100% Ahtikaans form South Africa, and I intuitively feel that he particular way of lightly salting meat, adding corriander and pepper (and in some recipes a lot of other, IMNSHO opinion toatlly unnecessary things, for taste and then drying to preserve is also a South African development. The question I would like to pose is: Is biltong, as described above really a South African "invention"?

Pork fat can be used to make droёwors, but it starts to develop a rancid taste within a short period of a few weeks. In salami there are spices which cure the fat so that it does not go rancid so fast?

Smaaklik eet!

Andrew McLaren

The major difference between biltong and jerky is not the spices but the temperature that the meat is dried at. Here in the U.S. the Food and Drug Admin is deathly agains biltong because they believe that the temperature needed to "safely" dry meat is much higher than that of biltong. So, the best bet is to make it in your garage during the hottest, driest times of the year. Build a window screen cage to keep the flies off and run a fan upwards under the meat (air movement is important) and everything should turn out fine. I love the biltong with the fat layer, my chubby ol' self.

Andrew,



The biltong, drywoers (sorry about the spelling, can't find the right letter on my computer...) and boerwoers, as Cewe and I have mentioned is diffinatly a southern african invention. Don't be fooled by us! The only reaon we up here in Scandinavia are making it is because of spending time down in southern africa. The habit of using corriander as a "main spice" is not common up here at all. No matter what type of dried meat or sausage is made.



As for the pork fat, how can you think the drywoers would last several weeks? By that time it's been eaten long ago! My problem is that it's so good that I can't stop until it's all eaten up... Seriously though, I did put some in the freezer, and took out more when needed. Maybe this was what kept it from going rancid.



However, I have now come up with an idea to secure sheep tail fat. I'm thinking that some of the Pakistani "Halal meat shops" in town might be able to get me some.



Cewe,

I us a simple sausage stuffer that attaches to my kitchens "food processor". I used lamb intestines, which are the smallest. This made a perfect boerwoers and drywoers size IMO. They are a bit more fragile than larger (pig and grown sheep) intestines, but as long as you work carefully it's ok. The trick is to not overstuff them. If you do they will split open when on the braai.



Erik D.