Tuesday, 1 September 2009

Biltong/Jerky batch, ...., not sure, a couple more than whatever I reported last time

Cracked it.

It turns out most of the biltong flavour is not the spices and salt etc, it's the vinegar in the marinade.

My last batch I just used Worcester sauce and no vinegar as the sauce has a fair bit of vinegar in it anyhow. The result was not at all the right flavour.

This time I went heavy on the vinegar, light to moderate with the Worcester sauce and about the same as usual with the salt and sugar and it has come out very close to the real thing. The differences now are probably in the spices and salt:sugar ratio.

I also dried it much more then usual. I find that the stuff rehydrates as it stands to some degree if it isn't very dry as it comes out of the dehydrator. I guess the moisture in the core soaks out to the dryer "skin".

4 comments:

Liam H Wandi said...

HA HA excellent! I came to your blog to check out Crossfitty kinda stuff and ended up reading about biltong, aka the essence of life!

Being married to a Namibian, I have my fair-share of Biltong. Actually, a few good men's fair share! I have one thing to tell you bro. There is no spoon!

In other words, the way you make biltong is just that. Ur biltong is real. My biltong is real. Don't believe me? Come with us next xmas to Namibia and I'll take you around the different biltong houses. Try to convince Uncle Pete that his biltong is not the real stuff :) ha ha I can just see it :)

I love your stuff both here and on the X Brand site. Cheers for hearing me :)

Liam H Wandi said...

:)

Craig Massey said...

They have biltong houses?
That sounds like heaven!

Yeah, I can't stop myself with the stuff, it's totally addictive. What's your screen name on the forum? Are you based in Namibia now?

Cancel that, I just checked your profile, in the UK huh?

Liam H Wandi said...

Ha ha heaven it is. No LIVING in Nam doesn't tickle me just yet. I want to move to Cape Town tho. Yeah practically every cafe and deffo every petrol station has fresh and packaged biltong. That's when you realise it's like bolognese sauce in Italy. Every house wife has a recipe and a story.
How did you get into Biltong?

liamwandi@yahoo.co.uk