Sunday, 14 March 2010

Biltong/Jerky. No, just biltong; I've been doing it all wrong!

Ignore all my previous recipes and testing. I just sampled the latest batch that finished drying this morning and I'm really struggling to restrain myself from going back and eating the lot.

The correct workflow is:

  1. Salt the beef
    I've seen some recipes refer to applying baking powder too. In the past that just fizzed off when I marinaded it in vinegar, so I stopped doing it.
    I'll try it again.
  2. Let it sit for a couple of hours.
    This draws out moisture and toughens the outside of the beef noticeably so that you get that characteristic biltong chewy outside and softer inside. I'm going to try letting one batch of salted beef sit overnight to see if that overdoes it, just so I know what I can do with the timing of the various sections for when my calendar is full.
    Nope, have to go eat some more, back soon.
    OK, stocked up for the rest of the typing.
  3. Wash the salt off with vinegar and worcester sauce.
    I'm not sure about the sauce. Because the beef doesn't marinade in the liquid, I'm not sure I need to cut the vinegar flavour with the Worcester sauce any more.
    I'll tinker with that.
  4. Apply the spices.
    I only use coriander and forgot the black pepper.
    More tinkering
  5. Let it sit for a few hours.
    I'm really not sure this is necessary and it's the first thing I'm going to alter by removing it.
    If it isn't I'll save a lot of time.
  6. Cut it into strips.
    Only because it dries better in the dehydrator. In a true biltong box I wouldn't do this.
    I might try some whole pieces again, the toughened meat shrinks a little too so my little dehydrator may cope better.
  7. Dry it in the dehydrator.
    I can see a biltong box or Excalibur style dehydrator in my future here.
    Something I did a little differently was dry it on the highest setting for about 3 hours, then drop the heat down to, damnit, I can't remember, lower anyway, to finish the job overnight.
    This resulted in the biltong being less "cooked" and more dried, altogether more desirable.
Oh, result (because I didn't state it explicitly); Absolutely fantastically delicious biltong!

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