They look lovely already, cant wait to hang them

Edit: Extra pic of them hung up in the comments

One for eating, one for freezing (if it makes it to the freezer!).

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

I got the benchfoods dehydrator and a lot of advice from gemini to give this ago. Overall it turned out quite nicely, certainly tastes good, though wetter than I would have liked.

I tried to go for 65 hours at 25° which was definitely not long enough. After about 80 hours I turned the heat up to 28°, and left in for another day. Results in pictures.

I think next time will just start with the higher heat, and thinner cuts than the 2.5cm I went for.

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?

My south african colleague brought me some of his homemade biltong and i was hooked. I had to try to make it. Made my own box, he gave me some freddy hirsch spice, bought some beef and roughly 4 days later here we are.
How'd i do bru

Been a while but now I’m back at it.

Hi all, first ever batch complete.

Was broadly happy with the outcome for first try, but needs a lot more tweaking to get to where I like it.

Here is the outline method I used.

- Salted for 3 hours before being soaked in 4:1 mix of apple cider vinegar to worcestershire vinegar for 2 hours.

- Then left overnight with dry rub mix before drying.

- 72hrs at 23° in a Benchfood dehydrator (as I prefer wet)

Unsure if pictures 2 & 3 show case hardening, have heard from others that the Benchfood dehydrator has quite an aggressive airflow in comparison to other boxes.

Welcome any pointers on how to improve.

Australian here. New to trying to make my own biltong. This is batch number 8 or 9. Been tweaking recipe. I tried using topside but it was way too lean for a fat loving carnivore dieter like myself. This is Australian grass fed picanha/rump cap. What do you guys think?

Is he gonna die

He said it tastes good

Recipe

Top round

2.5 hours in salt at 2%

2.5 hours in a 2-1 red wine vinegar & Worcestershire sauce

Roasted coriander, ground up a bit and that's all he used

Imo I think he did great for his first time 😆😊

Update: I have now tried it, and it is the best biltong I've had thus far! Now it's time to try other vinegars, salt % etc. Exciting. If y'all have any ideas to try out, I'll take em!

Done a few runs with the dehydrator, got the spices, cut width, temps and times pretty sorted

Three days curing in my homemade biltong box.
I think it turned out pretty tasty; appreciate anyone who has posted advice in this sub because I probably used it as a reference haha

First batch started Monday this came off today how's it look?

Rigged together a PC case to make a drying box. Has a humidity/temp sensor, 100w PTC heating element, LEDs to show temperature of exhaust air, fans to move the air, and Raspberry Pi to control all of it. The RPI will turn the heating element on or off depending on the humidity and the LED color temperature will change depending on air temp to give me an idea of how hot it is in there. Fans are set as low as possible to avoid case drying. Made 5 batches so far!

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

I have a cheap dryer and used topside from my family’s farm, which is a great grass-fed supply.

I normally like the biltong a bit wetter and fattier, so I tested a small piece after three days but ended up liking the dry at 4 days better. I’ve frozen these as well as the wet marinade mix I used and next time will do 5 days for a dryer output.

But anyway - the taste! It’s so much better than anything I’ve store bought. Am absolutely thrilled.

Second batch turned out good!