Smoked Biltong

Some of you already know that my favorite dried meat is the South African Biltong!! It’s the best. Today we are going to use our Smokin-It Smoker as a biltong box and while its in there we’ll be leveling up that biltong by adding a little smoke flavor.

If you are not familiar with this delicious dried meat, biltong falls somewhere between American Beef Jerky and Italian Bresaola. I hate to even compare it to the two because truly it stands alone in flavor and texture. Once you taste a piece you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ve broken biltong down into 3 basic steps. Preparing the meat, curing the meat, then drying the meat.

Preparing the Meat

Choosing the right cut of meat is extremely important when making high quality biltong. You can technically use any cut of beef that you want but a very popular choice for biltong is the bottom round (aka silver side), top round is also another popular cut as well.

I personally leave the fat on as I like the extra flavor that it adds as well as the nice mouth feel but since it’s your biltong you can decide for your self. Beef with yellow fat tends to be even more flavorful. Trim your meat of any silver skin, sinew, or gristle and cut your steaks WITH THE GRAIN at roughly 2cm thick.

At 2cm thick your biltong will take 3-6 days to finish drying. If you cut your slices too think, you run the risk of developing something called case hardening (where the outside of the meat forms a tough shell that prevents the inside of the meat from drying)

Curing the Meat

Often I hear about how salty biltong can be. In today’s recipe I’ve calculated an equilibrium cure so that your biltong comes out perfect every time. All you have to do in enter the weight of your trimmed biltong steaks in the box that reads “How much do you want to make”. The recipe will adjust accordingly based off of how much meat you have. I will apologize in advance as you will need to enter the weight of your meat in grams (sorry, I like metric for this recipe😁)

The cure for this recipe is very simple and I would like to think that it tastes more like a traditional South African Biltong. Feel free to adjust the spices (not the salt or vinegar) if you want to. Some people like to add fennel, brown sugar, paprika, red pepper flakes, or all spice, so you can have fun with it.

Drying the meat

When it comes time to dry biltong all you have to do is hang it in an area where it’s warm, a little breezy, and low humidity. Basically I shoot for a temperature of 70f-86f and a humidity of 50%-60%. I find that these conditions are perfect for producing a nice biltong that doesn’t dry too fast. Generally I just hang mine in a warm sunny area in my kitchen by a window.

If you don’t have these conditions at home you might want to consider building or buying a biltong box. A biltong box is a very simple box that allows you to control the temp and air flow. It basically consists of a heating element and a small computer fan with a few vent holes. I hope to have a post on how to build one soon😉

Todays Biltong will be placed in our Smoker with a Jerky Dryer attachment. It will act as a “Biltong Box” to dry our meat. The smoker can be set to a very low temperature and maintain it during the drying process. One thing I will say is that if you have a smoker like mine and it’s very hot outside, then the smoker will not act as a cooler. It only heats, so you might want to move your smoker into a cool area for this project.

Once your biltong has lost the appropriate amount of weight, it’s ready to eat!! At 50% weight loss you have a “Wet” biltong and at 70% weight loss you have a “Dry” biltong.

Enjoy the video and the recipe where I take you through the entire process of making South African Biltong. If you have any questions let me know..

Here are a few things you might find useful when making beef Jerky

• Accurate scale for meat (up to 33 pounds)
• Smokin It Smoker
• Jerky Dryer from Smokin It
• Bella’s Cold Smoke Generator
• Sharp Kitchen Knives
• Ceramic Honing Rod
• Extra Large Mortar & Pestle
• Custom Cutting Board

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Smoked Biltong

South Africa's favorite meat snack but smoked

Prep Time2 days d

dry time5 days d

How much do you want to make? 4540 grams

Ingredients

Metric – US Customary

• 4540 g bottom round or top round trimmed and cut into 2cm thick steaks – cut with the grain
• 120 ml red wine vinegar
• 60 ml Worcestershire sauce
• 102 g salt
• 32 g savorye
• 34 g pepper corn
• 68.1 g coriander seed toasted

Instructions

• Begin by preparing your meat. Trim off any silver skin, gristle, and soft fat. Cut your meat WITH THE GRAIN into 2cm thick steaks. (I USE THE WIDTH OF MY THUMB TO MEASURE EACH STEAK)
• Toast the coriander and the pepper corn, then coarsely grind it up. Combine the coriander, pepper corn into a container.
• Combine the red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce in a container and pour half of this mixture In a nonreactive tray that can fit your meat. Arrange all of your meat on that tray and pour the rest of the red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce mix over the top.
• Sprinkle 1/2 of your salt over the meat and enough of your coriander spice blend to coat the meat. Turn the meat over and sprinkle the rest of the salt over the meat. Continue by adding more of the coriander spice blend to your meat till evenly coated. I like to separate a little of the spice blend to add as a spice crust after the biltong has finished curing.
• Cover the meat and place into your refrigerator. After 12 hours be sure to rotate all the meat so that it cures evenly. You could also place the meat in a vacuum seal bag (or zip lock bag) ensuring that all of the spices and any liquids from your tray are added as well. Try not to leave anything behind.
• Let the meat cure in your refrigerator for 24-36 hours (if you have your meat in a tray or bowl be sure to rotate the meat every 12 hours. If you are vacuum sealing the meat and spices be sure to flip the bag every 12 hours and massage the meat -this helps the meat cure evenly).
• After the meat has finished curing remove it from the bag. If you have some reserve coriander spice blend you can add it to your meat pieces now, lightly sprinkle the spice mix on each side (this will give you a very nice spice crust when your biltong is ready)
• Place your biltong on your smoker racks. If you have rods you can hang them vertically also.
• Set your Smokin-IT smoker to run at 86f for 5 days.
• Cold smoke using the Bella's Cold Smoke Generator for 4-5 hours using your favorite smoke wood. I used Hickory, Apple, and Oak (equal parts of each). If you prefer a lighter smoke flavor I would cold smoke for 2 hours. For a heavier smoke flavor I would smoke for 6 hours. Be sure to not over smoke or it will give your biltong a bitter taste.
• Once you have finished cold smoking your biltong, place the Smokin-It Jerky Dryer on top of your smoker making sure you line up the hole in the jerky dryer with the hole in the smoker. Plug the Jerky Dryer in and let it run.
• For a "WET" Biltong you will want to let your meat dry for 3-4 days, for "DRY" Biltong you might want to check it at 5-6 days.
• Either way, Once finished, remove your biltong, slice it, and enjoy!!

For Storage

• You can place this in a paper bag into your refrigerator in you plan on eating it up soon, or you can vacuum seal the biltong and keep in the refrigerator for longer storage.

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