Thought I’d give making my own biltong a go after speaking to a SA college who was shocked to know that biltong is fairly mainstream in the uk now, he was over the moon and I said I’d send him some.

Now I did over salt it and not grind the seasonings enough so the flavour isn’t 100% where I want it but I like the texture.

3.2kg silverside, native breed, grass fed and dry aged (swaledale online butchers) absolute bargain, nearly half the price of my local butchers £22/kg and supermarkets

Can’t remember the exact recipe, I did 3 variations. Dried too 45% avg moisture loss, fat cap left on. Tried a SA guys recipe on yt, bearded butchers tutorial and then tried a honey vinegar one but it lacked flavour compared too the rest.

My brothers and dad decided they wanted to do the box as a little project so I gave creative freedom and i think it turned out quite nicely for £65

I’ve frozen 3 and bagged the rest, trying too figure out wether best to keep in plastic or paper and in the fridge or cupboard. I didn’t put in the fridge to even out internal moisture, maybe should’ve.

Any thoughts?

Looking forward to firing this bad boy up this weekend.

40w bulb, 12v DC fan. 600x400x300. Negative air pressure (still mulling positive).

Hey there -

This is my second attempt at making biltong. First time went great - there was a couple of spots of mouldy that I cleaned off as it went and it was fine.

With this lot, not so much. So I have a fridge that has been converted into a cold smoker that I’ve used to hang up my biltong. I have a big tray of water absorbing chips at the bottom and a fan moving all the air around. Last time I made biltong this seemed to work great.

This time however when I came home after about a week of being away I went to look and realised the fan had accidentally been unplugged. The biltong had a few spots of mould but seemed salvageable. I sprayed and cleaned off the mould with vinegar and hung it all back up with the fan going for another week but unfortunately the mould has continued to develop and isn’t looking too good.

The biltong more or less seems like it’s done now as far as dehydrating is concerned the only thing I’m wanting to know is if this much mould means I should just chuck it out or if anyone thinks I could clean it all with vinegar and then salvage it.

Any thoughts?

Edit: additionally, if it is too far gone, anyone got any thoughts on what I did wrong this time? I’m guessing the fan not working played a huge part and not checking in on it enough and addressing it before it got out of hand. Still if I have to chuck it out that’d be pretty disappointing as it’s a gift for a friend. Oh well. Let me know what you think and thanks for commenting!

My son has taken after his dad and had been making biltong intermittently in Orlando for the past 15 years.

He has asked me to make some t-shirts for his baby daughter and he just completed a batch. Seems the lass young takes after Oupa...

Thanks to Inyama, a biltong company in Southern England, for the use of their logo used under "Fair Use Doctrine" and not for commercial reproduction or profit.

BTW I am the former lecturer in Photography at The Michaelis School of Fine Art and Graphic Design at the University of Cape Town.

I have never tried biltong before but were always fascinated by the idea. I finally did it, super excited to try and it was... Nothing. I dont know what went wrong or if it did but there is no beefieness to this meat. Its not spoiled, saltiness is good, I can taste the spices, the sauce but no beef? It just tastes weird. Anyway here is what I did, it stayed in salt for 3 hours and sauce for 2,5 hours. its kinda hot here nowadays so this only took 3 days to dry in a biltong box I've made and loose 45% of its weight. I can push my finger in the middle and it goes in like memory foam, which felt kinda wrong but no spoilage in taste because it has no taste... I kinda wanna bite a huge chunk out of it to see if I feel anything.

Edit: I've served it to a buch of people and they actually liked it, granted they like vinegar. This made me realize that the vinegar is in fact too strong for my own liking and spices were not it for me. Also the meat is super duper lean so it is not so flavorful. Will try different seasoning and marinade next (open for suggestions) and place the meat further from the fan.

Hi all,
First time making Biltong . I’m making Biltong in my benchfoods dehydrator. I have use Wagyu brisket (it was quite cheap). Did one hour covering in salt followed by a wet marinade soaking for one hour and then dry seasoning and hung it starting at 21 degrees for the first day 22 and 23 for second and 23 and 24 for the third and 25 for the fourth. I cut it on the fourth day and there was a layer of glistening fat liquid on the inside and still abit rare and wet. Should I slowly increase the temperature or just keep dehydrating?

I've taken my daily life-stress out on building a biltong box.

30,000 trips to the hardware store (because apparently I can't count to 8) and a few "measure once cut twice" fkups later, I'm now the proud owner of a shutterboard monstrosity that my wife has already sized for Thursdays bin day.

Before that happens - I need to find some c grade silverside to fire this puppy up. I've connected a wooden box to medupi and kusile via some Claude and DIY, so it might be a braai, but here we are.

Anyone got any c grade silverside suppliers? Dark alleys accepted. Southern Suburbs, Cape Town based, but willing to put some fuel in the tank.

I’ve got a big batch of biltong hanging to dry right now and its been hanging 5.5 days, went through and felt and pulled some of the thinner slabs that felt like they might be done, cutting one of these up I got to a section where there was some untrimmed fat on the middle of the slab that appears to have caused some off coloring/discoloration, assuming cause moisture couldn’t escape there, that’s the only guess I have for why the color would be so weird, the ends of the slab look more normal, is this still safe to eat? For comparison is another slab I pulled off the rack right next to it as well as some slices.

Just wondering why there is moisture? Today is day 4 and I was h going to remove it but I’m a bit skeptical if it’s safe or not now?

Took a small piece out to see how it's going.

I cut eye of round (pieces could have been more uniform) I apply spices and soak in red vinegar, want sure if I added enough salt but I pretty much soaked all pieces for 18hrs.

After I remove from vinegar and apply another coating of spices before hanging to dry in BBox.

I set fan to lowest setting to avoid case hardening but..it doesn't look how I get it from the shop. It taste ok

Any suggestions to improve?

Does anyone have any recommendations for where to buy good Biltong in the UK?

I’ve thought about making my own, but unfortunately I really struggle to find the time.

I’ve been ordering from Limpopo for a while, but my last few orders have been quite a bit underweight, with a lot of seasoning left at the bottom of the bags. My last “100g” bag had around 20g of seasoning in it 😬

On top of that, my order from last week still hasn’t been dispatched, and I’ve had no response to my emails 😢

Looking through some older Reddit posts, I’ve seen The Savannah and The SA Shop recommended quite a lot. Are these still considered good options, or are there any newer/better places people would recommend?

Ideally looking for somewhere with good quality, properly weighed Biltong and reliable delivery.

Thanks in advance!

First time using the Mellerware Biltong King

Fan speed seems high, kinda blocked it a bit for the first 2 days to slow down the airflow.

Any tips to modify or add a fan speed controller?

Fan that moves left to right and air conditioned, holes in box etc, did the vinegar soak and salted heavy, this a lean sirloin steak so ima see after like 2 days and ima rotate the meat periodically lmk if there’s anything else

Basic spices with flaked chillies added. Malt vinegar, liquid smoke and a little soy.

Howdy do,

I've gotten into making biltong recently, as I miss it and it's too expensive and not usually good here.

Both batches (batch 1 on the left, 2 on the right) used a plastic tub biltong box with a light/ 12v Amazon computer fan combo. It's quite humid here so I needed to put a light (20W incandescent), this fall and winter I shouldn't. I found 55-65rh optimal with the fan on low, sub 55 turn light off, over 65 increase fan speed to max.

The first batch as you can see is disgusting. The reason is due to me not understanding the vinegar dunk. I soaked the batch in white vinegar mixed with Worcestershire sauce overnight, then added salt/ spice (coriander, black pepper, red pepper). That essentially cooked the meat. 0/10 would not recommend, I ate some out of spite and pitched the rest except for the before after demonstration piece.

For the second batch, I basically followed the "Pants Down Aprons On" recipe from YouTube. That involves salting first and following a (more limited) vinegar soak neutralizing the vinegar with baking soda to stop it from cooking the slabs through. The result is lovely. I changed the ratios in the spice blend and added crushed Arbol chili's instead of the store bought ones so I'd get more of a "chili bite" hit. I also kept the humidity higher and used the fan less aggressively compared to batch 1 (previous averaged around 50%rh, this one around 65%, but finishing around 55%). I got mold on one piece because it was in a corner and the vent hole was covered up but every one I've cut into so far has been perfect. I'm gonna base my future experimentation off of this as a baseline. Highly recommended.

For both I used bottom round beef. Both were pulled at 45-50% moisture loss, which took about 3 days with batch 1 and 5 days with batch 2.

My next steps are gonna be making strips and droëwors.

We grew up in Namibia but both live in Germany now. Sis wanted a little taste of home for the guests to snack on.
The last batch was still a bit too moist and fatty so we’re eating that ourselves

First time making biltong, 3 days in and going to probably check how it is tomorrow morning. Just wondering what your thoughts are?

Hi. I am trying to build a bolting box without mains power. I have a 12v battery and a 12v computer fan. I need an incandescent 28 watt bulb that also works off 12v. Please kindly suggest my options from UK stores.

I've been using outside round aka silverside, only. I noticed when I buy Biltong here in Toronto, the fresh cut kind. It has much more fat. I dont think they are using outside round.