A Beer Accompaniment

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Kai

Fermentation Assistant
Joined
1/4/04
Messages
3,734
Reaction score
17
I picked up this recipe a couple years ago from my uncle, who got it from a south african bloke. They call it biltong over there, and its certainly nicer than any oven-dried jerky you buy here.

Ingredients are thusly:

Meat, as lean as possible. I prefer topside, but roo makes a nice alternative.
Rock salt.
Vinegar, I usually use brown but some good malt vinegar would probably work nicely.
Seasoning, whatever you desire. Good options are cracked pepper, coriander, cayenne, cumin, onion, garlic, mustard powder and so on.
  • Have the butcher slice you some nice thin slices of topside, say less than 1cm thick
  • Cut these into strips around 1cm wide. Lay them in a dish on a bed of rock salt. The salt does not need to cover all of the meat, it's only there to suck out some of the moisture. Sprinkle salt over the top too, you can build up layers in the dish if you're doing a lot of meat. It's important to use rock salt, normal salt will be absorbed into the meat making it too salty.
  • After around 15-20 minutes, scrape off the salt. Immerse the strips in the vinegar, either a quick rinse or a 5 minute soak if you want your meat tart (and a little safer). You can also add crap to the vinegar for flavouring, like lemon, lime, worcestershire, soy, tabasco, bourbon, etc.
  • Remove the meat from the vinegar, shaking or squeezing off the excess. Lie on a tray and cover with dry seasoning of your choice. Cover sparsely, otherwise the seasoning will be too strong when dry. Also, avoid premixed seasonings that contain salt, they make the meat too salty when it's dry.
  • Either air dry on a rack or hang them up on a clean area free of dust and insects. I usually hang mine using paper clips on a shower rail, but at the moment I'm trying to dry a batch on a rack in the oven with the fan on. On the shower rail, pieces of this size usually take no more than 24 hours to dry.
There's room to move with this recipe. You can make it saltier/less salty, make the vinegar stronger, put on whatever seasoning you desire, try different meats and different sized cuts, dry it out more or less, and so on. I like mine this way because they dry quickly and I cut them in half afterwards so they end up like little twiggy sticks, but another option is to make the pieces around 1 inch by 1/2 an inch, and eat them by slicing off a thin piece at a time.

Obviously, this has the potential to be a risky product. I'm sure you mob know how to be hygienic in the kitchen, though. I've never gotten sick from eating it, I think it's fine so long as you use good fresh meat, keep things clean, make sure the salting and vinegaring are done adequately and make sure it doesn't get contaminated while drying.

Compared to ordinary beef jerky, it comes out a lot softer. If it dries right, the outside goes firm and dry while the inside remains soft and chewy. It's also a lot more flavoursome than regular jerky, I like mine with chilli and cumin and a nice tart flavour. Kangaroo's a real pearler, I seasoned some with wasabi and pepper, the strength of roo meat is tasty but not overpowering and it comes out surprisingly tender.

Oh, and it all goes great with beer.
 
Kai, i love this stuff. My wife's family is south african, and every now and again they get the roo version!! delicious. i'll have to try and make some. it's really great stuff, especially with beer!!
 
I have made heaps of jerky. It comes out awesome and at a fraction of the cost of retail jerky.

Hoops
 
Hello All

i personelly love beef jerky wether home made or theretail version as long as it isnt the the beef jerky in the green pack..

Mrs_Ozdevil
 
Top stuff Kai, grabbed some topside shopping today so I am having a crack at this one :) hopefully I will live to tell the tale.

Love the beef jerky. B)
 
Good stuff, Jason. Let us know how it turns out.

wardy - do you know what method your wife's family use? I've read a lot of different ways of doing it, the one above is just the way I think is easiest and best. I'm considering trying to replace the rock salt with a brining step, but that'll be hit and miss to begin with.

Oh yeah, and I took photos. Nothing like posting pictures of your meat on the internet :)

biltong_closeup.JPG
 
And another one of it on the rack. Drying in the oven with the fan on worked well, it was done in around 18 hours.

I used pepper, cayenne, cumin and coriander on this lot.

biltong_spices.JPG
 
I've suggested they open up a jerky factory at work. They make a killing off the dried pig's ears they use as pet treats.

mmmmmmmm jerky
 
Well I went for a cracked pepper + garam masala combo. Bloody tasty stuff! this will be a regular from now on. Only problem is that it is fast dissapearing so I wish I had made more. :D

How much do you normally make Kai? I just did the one piece of topside this time but may up it to two pieces next time so it last longer than a day.
 
I usually only do a couple pieces at a time due to space constraints. As you've mentioned, the biggest problem is that it disappears too quickly.

It'll keep for months in the freezer without drying out too far, so I'd say make as much as you have room for. I usually keep mine in the fridge, if it lasts that long.

Good to hear it turned out well :). I made a couple pieces with garam masala on them the first time I did it, but I dropped those pieces on the floor so never got to try them.
 
When I make jerky I hang it on the oven racks so I get quite a bit in there. I then set the oven to the lowest setting with the door open a bit to let the moisture out.
I usually use either a whole blade roast or some topside, so a kilo or two for me.
It has the same problem as HB in kegs - disappears faster than you plan!
 
Had a go at this yesterday and the results are bloody marvellous. I used kangaroo steaks, put some crushed garlic in the vinegar and sprinkled some with chilli, some with curry powder, some with pepper and left some au naturel. Left it to dry in the fan forced oven with heat down as low as it gets (barely warm) and door open. A few hours like that then turned it over, turned the oven off and left it overnight. Another hour this morning and it's done.

Easy recipe and great results, it is going very quickly and I can see it would be impossible to make too much of this stuff. Next time I will make a big mob of it.
 
Great stuff isn't it, deebee? I'm glad you've tried it and like it.
 
At the last couple of QLD gathering someone has brought along jerky and its about time I gave making some ago. Im going to give Kai's method ago this week but would also like to know how others make jerky and whats your favorite recipe?

Cheers
Jye
 
I was looking at this thread the other night... I think I need to make some for the case swap this sunday :D
 
At the last couple of QLD gathering someone has brought along jerky and its about time I gave making some ago. Im going to give Kai's method ago this week but would also like to know how others make jerky and whats your favorite recipe?

Cheers
Jye

Ditto, I missed this one but after reading it convinced me to make some this weekend. Love to hear of any modifications to any receipes.

Cheers.
 
Had a go at this yesterday and the results are bloody marvellous. I used kangaroo steaks, put some crushed garlic in the vinegar and sprinkled some with chilli, some with curry powder, some with pepper and left some au naturel. Left it to dry in the fan forced oven with heat down as low as it gets (barely warm) and door open. A few hours like that then turned it over, turned the oven off and left it overnight. Another hour this morning and it's done.

Easy recipe and great results, it is going very quickly and I can see it would be impossible to make too much of this stuff. Next time I will make a big mob of it.

Heya, out of interest, do you know what cut of roo it is? I have a 'non commercial' :rolleyes: source of roo meat and and have been meaning to get a hold of some to dry.
 
Well I saw this the other day and thought that I should give it a go. After all I do owe it to myself. Went to the butcher today and have just finished seasoning and placing in the oven with the fn on and heat off. Will let you know how it turns out.

Cheers again to Kia for a great thread... and idea :p

HK
 
anyone tried to dry any in the weber? might be worth giving it a go with some of the hickory chips you can get. how long do you leave it in the oven.
 
I spent ages trying to emulate the local Reedy Creek Butchery Jerky, which I must say is outstanding and I found the best method was to hang it up for a few days. If you are going to use the oven, make sure you don't dry it out too much. Also, if you google jerky, you will find websites dedicated to making the stuff, absolutely wonderful this internet thing :super:

cheers

Browndog
 
Back
Top